He loves me, he loves me not. Such is the Elon Musk Bitcoin (CCC:BTC-USD) relationship. Today, the Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) founder is back on the cryptocurrency’s bandwagon if miners can get more environment friendly. The value of BTC increased 9.22% in the last 24 hours after Musk expressed a change of heart.
On Sunday, Musk tweeted that Tesla would resume allowing Bitcoin transactions “When there’s confirmation of reasonable (~50%) clean energy usage by miners with positive future trend.”
His comment came after Sygnia CEO Magda Wierzycka criticized Musk for his recent behavior on the crypto, saying “What we have seen with Bitcoin is price manipulation by one very powerful and influential individual.”
This is inaccurate. Tesla only sold ~10% of holdings to confirm BTC could be liquidated easily without moving market.
When there’s confirmation of reasonable (~50%) clean energy usage by miners with positive future trend, Tesla will resume allowing Bitcoin transactions.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 13, 2021
As you may recall, Musk sent Bitcoin into a spiral in May with his assessment that the mined coins were “dirty money,” suspending vehicle purchases using BTC. On May 12, he wrote:
“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.”
The Bitcoin price tumbled instantly after Musk’s tweet — falling from $54,800 to $46,000 in less than two hours. One week after Musk’s tweet, the Chinese government announced a Bitcoin ban of its own, and the crypto tumbled as low as $30,000 before bouncing back toward $40,000. It sits just below that price as of this morning.
The environmental impact of mining Bitcoin is leading to another debate about whether Bitcoin would ever change from its current Proof of Work (PoW) protocol to a Proof of Stake (PoS) protocol.
World Can’t Get Enough of Elon Musk Bitcoin Saga
Earlier in June, Musk’s fickle relationship with BTC made news with a tweet that included the hashtag #Bitcoin and a broken heart emoji. He followed up by posting a breakup comic strip and replying “nice” to an illustration of rival crypto dogecoin posted by crypto exchange Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN).
The pair of memes precede yet another dip for Bitcoin, showing just how much sway the billionaire has with Bitcoin prices.
“When Elon Musk tweets any crypto-related content, the market… expects a reaction,” Nick Spanos, co-founder of ZAP Protocol, a crypto project in Switzerland, told Reuters.
What did those tweets mean? Who knows? But in this meshuggeneh world, coming from the CEO of a company with a $587 billion market capitalization, they seemingly speak to the masses.
On the date of publication, Robert Lakin did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
InvestorPlace contributor Robert Lakin is a veteran financial writer and editor, including previous stints with Bloomberg News and as a buyside equity research editor. His Substack newsletter, TLV Strategist, covers the Israel business scene.
