It seems that the relationship between Elon Musk and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin is not yet over. On Sunday, June 13, the entrepreneur, founder, CEO and CTO of SpaceX and CEO of Tesla Motors, spoke again about Tesla’s plans with virtual currencies, explaining that the automaker will re-accept them when mining is no longer harmful to the environment.
Elon Musk and Bitcoin: market manipulation?
This new statement makes it clear that, despite recent criticism, the billionaire continues to look favourably on Bitcoin.
Elon Musk has been accused of manipulating Bitcoin prices with his tweets. Cointelegraph said in a tweet recently: “Did you see? Elon Musk is catching flak again, but what’s it for this time? Sygnia CEO Magda Wierzycka criticised him saying “What we have seen with Bitcoin is price manipulation by a very powerful and influential individual.”
In response to the tweet, Elon Musk denied manipulating the market value of bitcoin with his statements on Twitter, and said that when it gathers evidence that at least 50% of all global cryptocurrency mining is done with clean energy, Tesla Motors will once again accept bitcoin as payment for its electric cars.
This is inaccurate. Tesla only sold ~10% of holdings to confirm BTC could be liquidated easily without moving market.
When there’s confirmation of reasonable (~50%) clean energy usage by miners with positive future trend, Tesla will resume allowing Bitcoin transactions.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 13, 2021
Elon Musk, Bitcoin and environmental impact
Elon Musk’s statement about environmental problems caused by bitcoin follows some questions raised by scientists linked to studies on climate change.
Energy usage trend over past few months is insane https://t.co/E6o9s87trw pic.twitter.com/bmv9wotwKe
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2021
The high computing power required for mining cryptocurrency would have caused, in 2018, an increase in global demand for electricity during a burst of popularity of bitcoin. So, scientists argue that, as is done today, the mining cryptocurrency increases emissions of greenhouse gases, contributing to the factors causing climate change.
Tesla began accepting bitcoins as a form of payment for its vehicles in March. Elon Musk announced on his official twitter profile on May 24: “You can now buy Tesla with Bitcoin”
Tesla is using only internal & open source software & operates Bitcoin nodes directly.
Bitcoin paid to Tesla will be retained as Bitcoin, not converted to fiat currency.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 24, 2021
However, in May, Tesla no longer accepted Bitcoin because of the environment. Elon Musk said on Twitter: “We are concerned about the rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel. Cryptocurrency is a good idea on many levels and we believe it has a promising future, but this cannot come at a great cost to the environment. We intend to use it for transactions as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy”
Influence of publications by Elon Musk on Twiter
Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s constant statements about bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on Twitter, such as Dogecoin, had a devastating effect on the Bitcoin market.
One such episode was when Musk responded to a comment comparing Dogecoin, a coin created as a meme, and Bitcoin on Twitter: “Elon is choosing DOGE because Dogecoin is better than Bitcoin in many fundamental ways. saction speeds, lower fees, and less environmental impact than BTC.
DOGE is affordable for regular folks because of its high supply”.
This comment by Musk caused Dogecoin quotes to rise and Bitcoin to fall according to what the billionaire was talking about.
Ideally, Doge speeds up block time 10X, increases block size 10X & drops fee 100X. Then it wins hands down.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2021
All these publications, one moment supporting Bitcoin, another moment supporting Dogecoin and talking about the environmental impacts caused by the mining of the cryptocurrency giant, led the investor market and cryptocurrency fans to question that Musk has been manipulating the market by making the price fall or rise according to self-interest – which Musk denies having happened.
