Tesla Will Soon Start Accepting BitCoin

Tesla stopped Bitcoin transactions in May 2021, but it could be on the cusp of soon restarting accepting the cryptocurrency. As it filed its Q3 2021 earnings report, it revealed a holding of $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin which is an indicator of its preparation to reopen the acceptance of Bitcoin.

Tesla's CEO Elon Musk had initially backed the cryptocurrency but then in May, he decided to pull the plug on it and started pushing dogecoin. Musk had said that the suspension of bitcoin was due to the environmental impact of bitcoin mining which used power-intensive GPU farms that were most powered through non-renewable sources of energy.

Elon Musk had suspended bitcoin transactions

This was in a way counterproductive to Tesla's vision of helping the world achieve carbon neutrality. "When there's confirmation of reasonable (50 percent) clean energy usage by miners with the positive future trend, Tesla will resume allowing Bitcoin transactions," Musk noted at the time and also revealed that he also had a massive bitcoin holding.

Musk noted that he was personally harming himself by suspending bitcoin transactions for Tesla. But while Tesla may be preparing to open up bitcoin transactions, this may not happen immediately as 5 months is not a long time and it is unlikely a lot of mining has transitioned to being powered by sustainable means.

In fact, there is a global semiconductor shortage which is making GPUs costlier and there is unprecedented demand for them. This coincides with the fact that Tesla recently became the 5th American firm to cross the $1 trillion valuation mark.