Elon Musk is back to his usual Bitcoin fondling antics.
The Tesla frontman now says the EV maker will accept Bitcoin as payment when miners use more renewable energy.
Back in March, Teslabegan accepting Bitcoinas payment for its EVs in the US.
By May, Tesla hadpaused accepting Bitcoin as paymentfor its vehicles.
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Cryptocurrency mining, the process used to create new coins and validate transactions, uses a lot of energy.
Its a common media trope to compare Bitcoins energy demands to that ofwhole countries.
Using that amount of energy isnt a problem per se, but where that energy comes fromisimportant to consider.
Tesla only sold ~10% of holdings to confirm BTC could be liquidated easily without moving market.
In these places, miners are incentivized to use renewable energy.
Some havequoted 39%,others as much as 76% but its a nuanced issue.
As the world moves to renewable power, Bitcoin will get slightly greener, as will everything else.
For the time being, that its not quite good enough for Tesla.
I do wonder if anyone has told Musk that Bitcoin usesless power than conventional banking.
If the company really cares about the environment, perhaps it should stop using money all together.
Story byMatthew Beedham
Matthew is the editor of SHIFT.
He likes electric cars, and other things with wheels, wings, or hulls.
