I'd love to know the thought process behind Elon Musk's Decision to no longer accept Bitcoin payments for Tesla Products....
Was it maybe over a few beers when a friend mentioned 'oh Elon, you know those Bitcoins you bought, they're like TERRIBLE for the environment', all those miners in China, they're like using LOTS of coal'.
I mean surely he couldn't have known this in advance of buying so much Bitcoin and linking it to an 'environmentally sound' project like Tesla?
However he got to his conclusion, I think for Tesla it's the correct one - for a company that's concerned with efficiency of energy use (you simply HAVE to focus on efficiency with electric cars!) - pairing up with the most energy-inefficient cryptocurrency, that is Bitcoin, makes NO SENSE!
I've been thinking for a while now that maybe Bitcoin is something of a fossil. Yes it was the first, yes it has a limited supply, yes it has A LOT in common with gold, yes it has a certain status, but it does seem a bit tired compared to some of the newer Chains.
Funnily enough I don't think the fossil fuel use thing is even really an issue - markets (and thus investors) generally don't give much of a shit about the environment - it's rather all the other dysfunctionalities of BTC that makes it seem fossil like compared to other faster, cheaper, and more environmentally friendly chains.
That one Tweet from Elon Musk about environmental concerns may have dropped the BTC price by 5%, so clearly there has been a significant reaction, but I don't so much think this is about 'concern that people will sell BTC because its bad for the environment', rather it's because BTC has lost its main poster-boy.
So what cryptos will Tesla Accept? Time to buy Doge?
The later half of Musk's Tweet said he'd be looking into Tesla accepting other cryptos which use <1% of BTC energy use, and surprise surprise, DOGE is one those!
Most of the main cryptos aren't good enough for Elon now....
'Ranking' coins which have low energy use include:
- Cardano
- XRP (although it's not a crypto, right?)
- Doge
Yes I know, only ONE of those doesn't make you groan and cringe, but it's quite possibly that they'll now gain even more thanks to speculation on Musk's Tweet.
I mean let's face it, we all know which one Musk prefers, so maybe it's time to bite the bullet and pick up some more Doge before it goes moonshot crazy.
Of course there's always Hive
Now I couldn't find any stats on Hive's energy use - but given that its run mainly on 20 servers (the chain at least, not the front ends) maintained by ordinary people who only received 120K Hive a year for running them, the total energy costs for a year could well be less than six figures ATW.
Maybe it's time to get tweeting at Musk?!?