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SpaceX Founder and Chief Engineer Elon Musk speaks at the 2020 Satellite Conference and Exhibition on March 9, 2020 in Washington, DC.
Win McNamee | Getty Images
The price of Bitcoin surged Sunday night in the United States after Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the electric vehicle maker may again accept bitcoin transactions in the future.
At 11:09 p.m. ET Sunday, Bitcoin jumped 10.2% to $ 38,903.23, according to data from Coindesk. Since the start of the year, bitcoin has jumped more than 30%, although its current price is far from the all-time high of $ 64,829.14 reached in April.
The gains came after Musk said on Sunday that Tesla would resume authorization for bitcoin transactions “when there is confirmation of reasonable (around 50%) use of clean energy by miners with a positive future trend.” .
Teslas halted car purchases with bitcoin in mid-May, citing concerns about the climate impact of cryptocurrency mining.
According to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, crypto mining requires massive amounts of energy to power powerful computers. Bitcoin mining uses more energy than entire countries like Finland and Belgium.
The latest development marks another example of significant market movements following comments from Tesla’s CEO and billionaire.
Hundreds of billions of dollars were wiped from the cryptocurrency market after Musk tweeted in May about Tesla’s suspension of purchases of cars using bitcoin. Musk’s past tweets have also been linked to moves in the stock market ranging from so-called memes stocks like GameStop to the viral song investor “Baby Shark”.
Bitcoin in the environmental spotlight
The environmental impact of bitcoin mining has come under scrutiny.
As part of its crackdown on bitcoin, China’s Inner Mongolia region, a major bitcoin mining hub, proposed sanctions in late May for companies and individuals involved in mining digital currency. It came after Chinese Vice Premier Liu He said it was necessary to “crack down on Bitcoin’s mining and trading behavior” to prevent the “transmission of individual risks to the social realm.”
Elsewhere, the Iranian government in May announced a ban on mining bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies until September 22, after officials said blackouts in the country’s capital, Tehran and in several other large cities, were in part due to energy intensive activity.
CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal and Natasha Turak contributed to this report.
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