Bitcoin crashes on Musk U-turn citing energy use

Tesla CEO Elon Musk doubled down on his attack on Bitcoin’s energy demands, calling

recent consumption trends

“insane”.


Musk posted a chart on Twitter from the

University of Cambridge

showing Bitcoin’s electricity consumption has skyrocketed this year. It’s the second day he’s criticised crypto mining for using fossil fuels and comes after an announcement that Tesla would suspend car purchases using Bitcoin.

The turnaround by one of crypto’s loudest believers took investors by surprise and sent prices tumbling across the board. Bitcoin plunged over 10% in early trading to below $50,000.

Exchange

operator Coinbase sank 2% in the premarket and other tokens including Ether and

Dogecoin

slumped.

Mining the token consumes 66 times more electricity than it did back in late 2015, according to a recent

Citigroup

report. Musk signalled on Wednesday that Tesla might accept other cryptocurrencies if they are less energy intensive, and said the company won’t sell any of its Bitcoin.

It’s unclear what prompted the decision and Musk and

Zachary Kirkhorn

, Tesla’s CFO, didn’t immediately respond to an email inquiry for comment.

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