Mrs Mullin Bernhardt, First of all, let me thank you for accepting this interview with DV8 World News. I am pleased to have such an environmental professional with us t...

Read more

Ecology: Are you in fashion? No longer a company without its environmental charter, no more a product without its eco-responsible promises, no more a speech coated with ecolo...

Read more

Eating plant-based is 6 times more effective for the environment than eating organic and local according to Carbone 4 , and it takes 4 times more land to feed a person with a hi...

Read more

Not a fan of Unabomber. “When the hares declared equal rights between animals, they wanted to ostracize the lions; they didn't answer, but they bared their teeth &r...

Read more

Elon Musk and bitcoin: end of the honeymoon.

Bitcoin and Elon Musk. | Posted on 2021-05-14 11:41

Tesla boss Elon Musk has just cut off the wings of bitcoin. After a spectacular surge, the cryptocurrency depreciates on the stock market by 12% in one session.

At the end of March, Elon Musk announced via a tweet that he now accepted the use of bitcoin to buy his cars: "You can now buy a Tesla in bitcoin" . Immediately, the currency jumped 20%. This announcement followed the purchase a few weeks earlier by Elon Musk for 1.5 billion bitcoin thus valuing his portfolio in the cryptocurrency at 2.48 billion dollars.

However, the honeymoon between the boss of Tesla and the virtual currency came to an abrupt end two days ago, when Elon Musk posted a level tweet saying that: “Tesla has suspended purchases of cars with bitcoins ”.

Even if he recognizes that "Cryptocurrency is a good idea on several levels and that it has a promising future". He considers its carbon footprint to be disastrous. Concerned about the impact on the environment and by the same on the image of his company, he chooses to put an end to its use. He motivated his decision by saying: “We are concerned about the increasing use of carbon-rich fuels to mine bitcoins, especially coal, which has the worst (greenhouse gas) emissions of all fuels. ". And to add that if the concept is good, “it cannot be to the detriment of a big environmental cost. Tesla will no longer sell bitcoins and we will use them for transactions when mining switches to sustainable energies ”.

A quick reminder for those of us who don't know what “mining” means: Mining is the process by which Bitcoin transactions are secured. For this, the "miners" carry out mathematical calculations for the Bitcoin network with their computer equipment.

We therefore understand the energy voracity that such a process leads to the exponential development of cryptocurrency in just a few years. From January 2011 to May 2021, the market value of bitcoin rose from $ 0.07 to $ 50,184 as of May 13!

For its part, the conclusions of the study conducted by the scientific journal Nature, published last week, seem to support Elon Musk's decision. Indeed, the study shows that Chinese bitcoin mines, which fuel nearly 80% of the global cryptocurrency trade, risk compromising the country's climate goals. These sites full of computers perform mathematical calculations that make it possible to create bitcoins. They consume huge amounts of electricity, partly drawn from coal-fired power stations. Left unchecked, the study indicates that Chinese computer mines will produce 130.50 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions by 2024, or nearly the total annual greenhouse gas emissions of Italy or Saudi Arabia.

Posted on 2021-05-14 11:41

Wizardwords Edition 8 Greenwashing, it’s really not our fight, it’s someone else’s. Sometime after the Assignment (Edition 7.0 Greenwashing is more than br...

Read more

Michelle Thew is the CEO of Cruelty Free International – the leading organization working to end animal testing worldwide. For more than 20 years, Michelle has been an adv...

Read more

Egypt issues Africa’s first Sustainable Panda Bond worth 3.5 billion RMB backed by African Development Bank and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. With African Devel...

Read more

DV8 Chat

Find your friends on DV8 Chat.

Suggestion

Newsletter

Receive news directly to your email!