Tesla CEO and SpaceX CTO, Elon Musk, has had an uneasy relationship with Bitcoin over the past few months. He has tweeted constantly sending mixed signals about his support or criticism of the digital currency.
On the night of June 3rd, the executive tweeted the “#bitcoin” followed by a heartbroken emoji and the image of a couple discussing the breakup.
#Bitcoin 💔 pic.twitter.com/lNnEfMdtJf
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 4, 2021
In the photo, the woman says: “I know I said it would be over between us if you quoted another Linkin Park song but I’ve found someone else”. Then, the man responds: “So in the end it didn’t even matter?”, referring to the lyrics of the band’s song In The End.
The effect Musk’s tweet had on Bitcoin
The market interpreted this prank as a sort of Musk signal against Bitcoin, and the effect of this was remarkable. Bitcoin dropped about 7% in the 24-hour period. On the following day, the currency already showed a good recovery, a little more than 4%.
Tesla’s CEO has long been known for being a Bitcoin enthusiast. However, since the beginning of this year, he has been in a constant fight with the market by giving mixed signals, mainly on his Twitter profile, about what he thinks of the digital asset.
Musk’s love-hate relationship with Bitcoin
In February, electric car company Tesla announced that it had purchased $1.5 billion in Bitcoins and that it would accept cryptocurrency as a means of payment. This episode caused the price of Bitcoin to soar, following a rally that had been going on since last year with other companies starting to adopt measures to use different cryptocurrencies.
In May, however, without any notice, Elon Musk said Tesla would no longer accept Bitcoin because of the environment. This happened because Musk is worried about energy use in Bitcoin mining.
More recently, Musk met with American Bitcoin miners to discuss BTC sustainability. In this meeting, they decided to create a council seeking better use of clean energy for crypto mining.
Musk wrote: “Spoke with North American Bitcoin miners. They committed to publish current & planned renewable usage & to ask miners WW to do so. Potentially promising.”
Spoke with North American Bitcoin miners. They committed to publish current & planned renewable usage & to ask miners WW to do so. Potentially promising.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 24, 2021
Despite all these events, Musk’s position on Bitcoin specifically isn’t clear.
Musk’s interest in Dogecoin
While Tesla’s CEO goes back and forth with his views on Bitcoin, he has shown a lot of interest in another cryptocurrency, Dogecoin, created based on a meme. He even said that he was working with programmers to bring improvements to the Dogecoin’s network.
“Working with Doge devs to improve system transaction efficiency. Potentially promising.”
Working with Doge devs to improve system transaction efficiency. Potentially promising.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2021
And Musk continued to share a series of Tweets about the cryptocurrency meme.
“Someone suggested changing Dogecoin fees based on phases of the moon, which is pretty awesome haha”.
Someone suggested changing Dogecoin fees based on phases of the moon, which is pretty awesome haha
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 24, 2021
