Elon Musk says Tesla will start accepting Bitcoin again once miners go green

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk has softened his stance on receiving Bitcoin as payment for vehicles. Currently, the electric vehicle (EV) maker has a moratorium on accepting crypto payments, but Musk says that will change if miners start using a simple majority of renewable energy sources.

Tesla had previously started accepting Bitcoin in payment back in March, which brought criticism from environmentalists, calling the move out of line with Tesla’s mission statement to reduce emissions.

That criticism hit hard, and Tesla stopped accepting Bitcoin in May, with Musk citing their concern about “rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal…”

Now Musk has set a target for when Tesla will resume Bitcoin as a purchase method, stating that it would need “(~50%) clean energy usage by miners” before that happens. That goal doesn’t seem to be far off, with a survey conducted by Cambridge University’s Center for Alternative Finance finding that 39% of Bitcoin’s energy usage was from renewable sources.

Maybe the rest of the necessary renewable energy could come from an equally unconventional source – cow poop. That solution also reduces the amount of methane released into the atmosphere by cow farming, a significant contributor to global warming. Yes, your shitcoins can literally be powered by shit. How fitting.

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Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.