American businessman Elon Musk published a message on Twitter that Tesla will no longer accept bitcoin as a means of payment. He explained this decision for environmental reasons: "We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel."
This Twitter post quickly affected the crypto market. Literally, in a matter of minutes after the publication, bitcoin, which was already in a very nervous state, began to fall sharply. According to the auction data, at one point the price of the coin fell by more than 17%, reaching the mark of $46.9 thousand.
The last time the crypto leader fell below the level of psychological support in the amount of $50 thousand was a little less than 3 weeks ago, April 25. However, it didn't stay there for very long. The very next day after the rapid fall, the price recovered just as quickly. On April 26, BTC increased by 15%, to about $54 thousand.
On Thursday morning, the global cryptocurrency is also trying to recover losses as quickly as possible. So, at the time of preparing this article, bitcoin was already able to break out of the key mark of $50 thousand. Today, other participants of the crypto market are also trying to rehabilitate themselves, who suffered for the company with bitcoin after Elon Musk's social media post.
The statement of the head of Tesla forced to change the direction of many well-known digital currencies that are in the top 10 by market capitalization. In recent hours, Ethereum, which lost more than 9% of its value by the time this material was prepared, and Binance Coin, Dogecoin and XRP, which sank by more than 10%, have gone into negative territory.
Against this backdrop, cryptocurrency-related stocks also fell across the board. For example, MicroStrategy Inc. securities fell by more than 9%, and Riot Blockchain suffered a loss of more than 17%.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk also stated that Tesla does not intend to part with the purchased bitcoins anymore. The company previously sold some of its assets, which helped it demonstrate a profit in the first quarter.
In addition, the "Techno-king" wrote that the company intends to conduct operations using bitcoin in the future, but as soon as its production will switch to a more sustainable energy. He noted that digital money is a good idea with a promising future.
Despite this remark, the statement of the director of Tesla still deprived the main cryptocurrency of psychological support. Looking at one of the leaders of the electric car market, other companies that may have had the desire to add bitcoin to their balance sheets may now change their minds.
Whatever one may say, American billionaire Elon Musk still continues to be the main influencer in the crypto market. His Twitter posts have repeatedly provoked strong movements of digital coins.
For example, at the beginning of the year, the head of Tesla attached the hashtag "#bitcoin" to his personal data in the social network. This was not a transparent hint at all, demonstrating Musk's interest in cryptocurrency. Thus, a seemingly insignificant action helped the asset to grow sharply.
A month later, Elon Musk's company announced that it had invested $1.5 billion of its capital in the digital currency and that it would soon begin accepting bitcoin as a means of payment. After this news, the price of BTC soared by 14% and updated the historical maximum, exceeding $47 thousand. But this time, the story was repeated almost exactly the opposite.
