Musk on Wednesday said Tesla would not sell any bitcoin, and intends to use bitcoin for transactions as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy. Tesla revealed in February it had bought $1.5bn of bitcoin, before it began accepting it as payment for cars in March, driving a roughly 20% surge in the world’s most widely held cryptocurrency. The whole concept of cryptocurrencies has been criticised for its ecological impact, with "mining" for new coins requiring vast energy reserves and the associated carbon footprint of the whole system. Sceptics warn that the lack of central control make crypto-assets ideal for criminals and terrorists, while libertarian monetarists enjoy the idea of a currency with no inflation and no central bank. Over time, the history of all those transactions becomes a lasting record of who owns what: that record is called the blockchain.īitcoin was one of the first and biggest cryptocurrencies and has been on a wild ride since its creation in 2009, sometimes surging in value as investors have piled in – and recently crashing back down. If you spend it, you tell the entire network that you have transferred ownership of it, and use the same key to prove that you are telling the truth. If you own a crypto-asset you control a secret digital key that you can use to prove to anyone on the network that a certain amount of that asset is yours. For that reason they are outside the control of governments and are unregulated by financial watchdogs – and transactions can be made in a way that keeps you reasonably pseudonymous. The technology behind it allows the ‘money’ to be sent directly to others without it having to pass through the banking system. Cryptocurrencies are an alternative way of making payments to cash or credit cards.
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