New York (AFP)
Elon Musk, the boss of US electric vehicle maker Tesla, said on Sunday that the company will accept bitcoin payments again when the virtual currency is less polluting.
"When it is confirmed that (bitcoin) miners are using a reasonable amount of clean energy (around 50%) with an improving trend, Tesla will resume allowing bitcoin transactions," the multi-billionaire wrote. on his Twitter account Sunday.
The American manufacturer caused a sensation in February when it announced that its customers could pay with cryptocurrency, an option that became possible at the end of March.
But Elon Musk did an about-face a few weeks later, indicating that bitcoins were no longer accepted for the sake of preserving the environment.
This digital currency is produced by powerful computers that have to solve equations, and in the process consume huge amounts of electricity.
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The science journal Nature recently published a study showing that bitcoin mines in China, which power nearly 80% of the global cryptocurrency trade and run in part from coal-fired power plants, risk jeopardizing the country's climate goals.
The businessman reacted on Sunday to an article raising the possibility that with his tweets, which regularly move the value of bitcoin in one direction or another, he is manipulating market prices for the benefit of his business.
“This is incorrect,” Elon Musk retorted on Twitter.
"Tesla only sold about 10% of its bitcoin to confirm that (the currency) could be sold easily without moving the market."
Tesla announced in early February that it had invested $ 1.5 billion of its ample cash in bitcoins, and has since sold part of it.
© 2021 AFP