Renewable energy milestone opens door for Tesla to resume crypto payments

According to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Jamie Coutts, Bitcoin has now passed the renewable energy milestone.

This suggests that Tesla could resume accepting Bitcoin as payment, as cited in a 2021 tweet.

The backstory on pulling the plug

Elon Musk, a known supporter of cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, has been viewed by many as being responsible for some of the cryptocurrency’s wild price swings, including its peak back in 2021.

This is inaccurate. Tesla only sold ~10% of holdings to confirm BTC could be liquidated easily without moving market.

When there’s confirmation of reasonable (~50%) clean energy usage by miners with positive future trend, Tesla will resume allowing Bitcoin transactions.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 13, 2021

Despite ongoing support, it was in June 2021 that Musk halted Tesla’s Bitcoin payments until clean energy usage by miners was around 50%.

Since then, Bloomberg Intelligence’s Coutts noted that clean energy usage is now greater than 50%, adding the combination of falling emissions and a rising hash rate means “Bitcoin mining is consuming more sustainable energy in its mix.”

👉Since China’s mining ban in mid-2021 when emissions peaked at 60.9 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e), emissions have declined 37.5%
👉suggesting the concern about Bitcoin’s carbon footprint are being overstated pic.twitter.com/HQtge8gpyN

— Jamie Coutts CMT (@Jamie1Coutts) September 14, 2023

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In time for PayPal 2.0

Although Musk has remained quiet on X (formerly Twitter) on this topic, the timing of this announcement was highlighted in a recent Forbes report as being particularly interesting since it occurred at the same times a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission insider warned crypto buyers of Binance, and a leak also suggested the Tesla CEO was thinking of turning X into a new version of PayPal that could incorporate cryptocurrency payments.

Given Elon Musk’s massive sway in the crypto community, especially as evidenced in his addition of the Dogecoin symbol to his X profile, a spike, even temporary in the market may bring in some good news for the market.

Read more: Elon Musk’s upcoming biography to illuminate his Dogecoin ties

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