Elon Musk’s surprise announcement that Tesla would stop supporting bitcoin amid fears over the environmental impact of cryptocurrency has led to new interest in digital currencies that might prove more sustainable.
In a tweet, the Tesla chief executive said that the company had become “concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel”. He did not indicate what had brought him to that realisation, which comes after a period of heavily promoting a variety of cryptocurrencies.
But he did suggest that it would be possible to change in the future – if cryptocurrencies were to become more sustainable.
“Cryptocurrency is a good idea on many levels and we believe it has a promising future, but this cannot come at great cost to the environment,” he wrote in the statement posted to Twitter.
“Tesla will not be selling any bitcoin and we intend to use it for transactions assoon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy. We are also looking at other cryptocurrencies that…
