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Elon Musk, founder and chief engineer of SpaceX, speaks at the 2020 Satellite Conference and Exhibition on March 9, 2020 in Washington, DC.
McNamee win | Getty Images
The price of bitcoin rose Sunday evening in the United States after Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the electric car maker may accept bitcoin transactions again in the future.
As of 11:09 PM ET on Sunday, the price of bitcoin was up 10.2% to $3,8903.23, according to data from Coindesk. Since the beginning of the year, the price of Bitcoin has risen more than 30%, although its current price is a long way from its all-time high of $64,829.14 in April.
The gains came after Musk said Sunday that Tesla will resume allowing bitcoin transactions “when there is confirmation of reasonable (~50%) clean energy use by miners with a positive future trend.”
Teslas stopped buying cars with bitcoin in mid-May, citing concerns about the climate impact of crypto mining.
Cryptocurrency mining requires massive amounts of energy to run powerful computers — bitcoin mining consumes more energy than entire countries like Finland and Belgium, according to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index.
The latest development is another example of big market moves following the comments of the Tesla CEO and billionaire.
Hundreds of billions of dollars were wiped from the cryptocurrency market after Musk tweeted in May about Tesla suspending the purchase of cars with bitcoin. Musk’s previous tweets have also been linked to moves in the stock market — from so-called stock meme like GameStop, to the viral song “Baby Shark” investor.
Bitcoin under the environmental spotlight
The environmental impact of bitcoin mining has come under intense scrutiny.
As part of its crackdown on bitcoin, China’s Inner Mongolia region – a major bitcoin mining hub – in late May proposed sanctions against companies and individuals involved in cryptocurrency mining. This came after Chinese Vice Premier Liu He said it was necessary to “take tough measures against bitcoin mining and trading behavior” to prevent “individual risks from being transferred into the social sphere.”
Elsewhere, the Iranian government in May announced a ban on mining bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies until September 22, after officials said power outages in the country’s capital, Tehran, and several other major cities were due in part to energy-intensive activity.
CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal and Natasha Turak contributed to this report.
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