Forex

Elon Musk says Bitcoin may have already hit his benchmark on renewable energy. "I want to do a little more diligence to confirm that the percentage of renewable energy usage is most likely at or above 50% and that there is a trend towards increasing that number," said the Tesla CEO. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has hinted that the crypto industry is on its way toward greener future, but Tesla won’t be accepting Bitcoin payments just yet. Speaking at "The ₿ Word" — a virtual Bitcoin (BTC) event with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood and moderator Steve Lee from Square Crypto — Musk said that Tesla would “most likely” consider resuming crypto payments for its vehicles — a policy the CEO said the company would be stopping in May — but said he needed to exercise diligence before making a decision. “There appears to be a positive trend in the energy usage of Bitcoin,” said Musk, alsexpressing skepticism at the speed at which the network had moved towards green energy sources. “There’s just no way you could basically double or triple the amount of energy in such a short period of time with renewables [...] Tesla’s mission is accelerating sustainable energy. We can’t be the company that does that and not do appropriate diligence on the energy usage of Bitcoin.” In May, Musk announced that Tesla would no longer accept Bitcoin payments due to the network’s “increasingly rapid use of fossil fuels.” The price of the crypto asset subsequently fell under $40,000 for the first time since February. The Tesla CEO later clarified that the company would resume BTC transactions when there was confirmation miners were using more than 50% clean energy “with positive future trend.”