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| Bitcoin Rise After Tesla Offered to Accept Crypto Again |
After Tesla President Elon Musk said Sunday that the electric car maker may accept Bitcoin transactions again in the future, the price of Bitcoin soared.
Bitcoin rose to $39,095, up 9% in the past 24 hours, above $34,880 when trading began on Sunday.
Since the beginning of the year, Bitcoin has grown by more than 30% despite the extreme volatility.
It hit a record $64,829 in April. It bottomed in May at nearly $30,000 after dropping 30% in one day.
After Musk said on Sunday that Tesla will emphasize the rational use of clean energy (about 50%) through the active development of future miners, Tesla will once again allow Bitcoin transactions and the weekend will be longer.
In response to comments by Magda Wirzka, CEO of Sygnia, Musk said Musk's tweets on their prices were market manipulation and should prompt an investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Tesla announced in February that it had bought $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin. He said he has started accepting cryptocurrencies as payment for his products.
But he stopped buying crypto cars in mid-May, citing concerns about the climate impact of crypto mining.
Bitcoin in the spotlight:
“We are concerned about the rapid increase in the use of fossil fuels for mining and foreign exchange, especially coal, which is the largest emissions of any fuel,” Musk said in May.
Cryptocurrency mining requires a lot of energy to run computers. According to the CBECI Energy Consumption Index, bitcoin mining consumes more energy than entire countries such as Finland and Belgium.
The recent development is yet another example of a major market move according to the Tesla boss' comment.
Hundreds of billions of dollars have disappeared from the cryptocurrency market. It did so after Musk tweeted in May about suspending Tesla's use of bitcoin to buy a car. Musk's previous tweets also point to stock market trends.
The environmental impact of bitcoin mining is under scrutiny. As part of the campaign against bitcoin, China's Inner Mongolia region - a major bitcoin mining hub - proposed in late May to impose sanctions on companies and individuals involved in cryptocurrency mining.
Earlier, the Chinese vice premier said it was necessary to take action against bitcoin mining and trading to prevent personal risks from spilling over into the social sphere.
Elsewhere, the Iranian government announced a ban on mining bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies until September 22, after officials said power outages in the capital, Tehran, and several other major cities were partly due to energy-intensive mining activities.