Tesla reverses stand on Bitcoin, now won’t accept it

Elon Musk says Tesla won’t accept cytrocurrency as payment. Photo: Supplied

Tesla will no longer accept Bitcoin as payment for its cars after stating in March it would accept the crytocurrency.

Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk has just announced the change, citing energy consumption and related environmental concerns. 

“Tesla has suspended vehicle purchases using Bitcoin,” said Musk. 

“We're concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel.”

Bitcoin is ‘mined’ using powerful computers competing against one another to solve mathematical puzzles. This process uses extensive amounts of electricity, which is often produced by fossil fuels, according to Auto Car UK.

Tesla now won't sell or use Bitcoin until the mining process becomes more sustainable.

“Cryptocurrency is a good idea on so many levels, and we believe it has a promising future, but this can't come at great cost to the environment,” said Musk. 

“We intend to use it [Bitcoin] for transactions as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy. We're also looking at other cryptocurrencies that use less than 1% of Bitcoin’s energy/transaction.”

The announcement caused the value of Bitcoin to fall to its lowest point since March and comes just months after Tesla bought US$1.5 billion (£1.07bn) worth of the digital currency.