As much as $365 billion wiped off cryptocurrency market after Tesla stops car purchases with bitcoin

Hundreds of billions of dollars were wiped off the entire cryptocurrency market after Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted that the electric vehicle maker would suspend car purchases using bitcoin. At around 6 p.m. ET on Thursday when Musk made the announcement, the value of the whole cryptocurrency market stood at around $2.43 trillion, according to data from Coinmarketcap.com.

Around 8:45 p.m., the market capitalization had dropped to around $2.06 trillion, wiping off around $365.85 billion. The market has pared some losses. Since Musk’s tweet, the cryptocurrency market had seen $165.75 billion wiped off its value at around 9:22 p.m. In February, Tesla announced in a regulatory filing that it had purchased $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin and planned to accept the cryptocurrency for payments. Musk cited environmental concerns on Thursday and said Tesla is “concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel.”

Other cryptocurrencies ether and XRP were also sharply lower. Musk has been a big proponent of digital currencies including bitcoin and dogecoin, helping to drive their prices higher in recent months.

As much as $365 billion wiped off cryptocurrency market after Tesla stops car purchases with bitcoin, CNBC, May 13