Four years have passed since Tesla stopped accepting Bitcoin, citing environmental concerns. While the Bitcoin mining industry has reportedly increased its share of renewable energy consumption, Tesla doesn’t appear ready to return to Bitcoin payments anytime soon.
On Feb. 8, 2021, Tesla disclosed a $1.5 billion investment in Bitcoin (BTC) in a filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Tesla CEO Elon Musk also decided to include the cryptocurrency in the company’s treasury and began accepting BTC as a form of payment for the company’s electric vehicles.
On May. 13, 2021, esla stopped accepting Bitcoin as a means of payment due to concerns over the rapid increase in the usage of fossil fuels, especially coal, for Bitcoin mining and transactions.
While Tesla stopped taking BTC, it said it would accept Bitcoin as soon as the cryptocurrency became more sustainable.
On June 13, 2021, Musk said that Tesla would allow BTC transactions once it could be sure that at least 50% of the energy used by miners was clean and had a positive future trend.
Since 2021, many dynamics of Bitcoin have changed. There has been indirect institutional adoption through spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), acceptance as legal tender, technological advances in its protocol, and improvements in renewable energy usage rates for crypto mining.
According to the graph below, modeled by climate tech venture capitalist Daniel Batten and data analyst Willy Woo, Bitcoin mining’s sustainable energy usage is currently at an all-time high of over 55%. The surge is part of a sustained positive trend since mid-2021.
Both conditions required by Musk seem to have been accomplished, so will he and Tesla honor their promise and reinstate Bitcoin payments?
Bitcoin miners’ wild renewable energy claims
Major decisions like accepting a cryptocurrency for payments in a multibillion-dollar business require verifiable and solid data. But is the data on Bitcoin ming energy solid enough?
Alex de Vries, a data analyst and researcher at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and De Nederlandsche Bank, told Cointelegraph that Bitcoin…
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