The crypto community at large has reacted in a variety of ways to Tesla dropping bitcoin payments.
Earlier, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that Tesla would no longer accept bitcoin as payment. The change of heart comes just two months after the electric car company started accepting bitcoin for vehicle payments. This followed Tesla’s influential purchase of $1.5 billion in BTC in February.
In a message embedded in the tweet, Musk said that Tesla is concerned about the increasing use of fossil fuels. He later added another tweet citing Cambridge University showing Bitcoin’s energy usage trend over the past few months. But in the first tweet, he said that Tesla would retain its bitcoin holdings. He added that the company intends to reintroduce BTC payments “as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy.”
Bitcoin’s transition to renewable energy
This turnaround comes as a shock to many who believed in Musk’s bullishness on bitcoin. However, his optimism that the Bitcoin network will transition to a more sustainable track is consistent with earlier statements of his.
Last month, in partnership with Ark Invest, Square released a whitepaper detailing how Bitcoin would lead to incentivizing renewable energy. When Square CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted this, Musk simply responded “True.” Although he’s confident this will occur, Musk clearly feels that Bitcoin is not there yet.
The crypto community responds
However, in response to the announcement, a slew of tweets from the crypto community seem to take issue with that notion. MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor called the move, “Ironic because no incremental energy is used in a #bitcoin transaction.” Sardonically, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said, “Elon probably did not research how much energy is required to run other (non crypto) currencies that Tesla accepts.”
Billionaire Mark Cuban affirmed that his NBA team would still be accepting cryptocurrencies, “because we know that replacing Gold as a store of value will help the environment.” Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz commended Musk for using his influence to make Bitcoin more sustainable. “He cares about the environment and he is using his considerable influence to push BTC mining towards a greener future,” Novogratz tweeted.
Meanwhile, others see the market dip that followed as a good buying opportunity. “This may be the selloff that sets Bitcoin up for new all-time highs,” said David Grider of Fundstrat Global Advisors. “We think the news is overblown and wouldn’t be surprised if Tesla is signaling plans to make crypto ‘greener.’”
Co-founder of U.S.-based Gemini cryptocurrency exchange, Cameron Winklevoss, seemed to second the idea. “In retrospect, it was a great buying opportunity,” he tweeted.
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