Bitcoin pops 10% after Musk suggests Tesla could accept the cryptocurrency again

Bitcoin’s price surged Sunday evening stateside after Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the electric vehicle maker could accept bitcoin transactions again in future. As of 11:09 p.m. ET Sunday, Bitcoin surged 10.2% to $38,903.23, according to data from Coindesk. Since the start of the year, bitcoin has surged more than 30%, though its current price is way off the all-time high of $64,829.14 hit in April.

Those gains came after Musk said Sunday that Tesla will resume allowing bitcoin transactions “when there’s confirmation of reasonable (~50%) clean energy usage by miners with positive future trend.” Teslas halted car purchases with bitcoin in mid-May, citing concerns over the climate impact of cryptocurrency mining.

Crypto mining requires massive amounts of energy to fuel powerful computers — bitcoin mining consumes more energy than entire countries such as Finland and Belgium, according to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index. The latest development marks yet another example of large market moves following comments by the Tesla CEO and billionaire. Hundreds of billions of dollars were wiped off the cryptocurrency market after Musk tweeted in May about Tesla’s suspension of car purchases using bitcoin.

Bitcoin pops 10% after Musk suggests Tesla could accept the cryptocurrency again, CNBC, Jun 14