Electric car maker Tesla will stop accepting Bitcoin as a payment, CEO Elon Musk tweeted on Wednesday, citing environmental concerns.
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"We are concerned about rapid increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel," Musk said on Twitter. He added that cryptocurrency is a "good idea on many levels" but its promise cannot come at a "great cost to the environment."
Tesla, he added, would not be selling any of the Bitcoin it owns.
The price of bitcoin fell about 5% to $51,847 after Musk's comments on Twitter. Tesla's stock finished Wednesday down 4.4%.
Bitcoin relies on computers, which rely on electricity, to exist. The number of computers and the energy needed to power them is rising – the growing value of bitcoin is directly tied to the amount of energy it uses.
Bitcoin miners unlock bitcoins by solving complex, unique puzzles. As the value of bitcoin goes up, the puzzles become increasingly more difficult, and it requires more computer power to solve them. Estimates on how much energy Bitcoin uses vary.
