Tesla has suspended vehicle purchases using bitcoin due to climate change concerns, its CEO Elon Musk said in a tweet.
Bitcoin fell by more than 10% after the tweet, while Tesla shares also dipped. Tesla’s announcement in March that it would accept the cryptocurrency was met with an outcry from some environmentalists and investors. The electric carmaker had in February revealed it had bought $1.5bn (£1bn) of the world’s biggest digital currency.
Supporters of bitcoin point out that the mainstream financial system, with its millions of workers and computers in air-conditioned offices, also uses large amounts of electricity, which is usually produced with fossil fuels.
-BBC