Tesla may start accepting Bitcoin again as payment, the company again confirmed yesterday. The electric car company said yesterday in an SEC filing related to the company's recent earnings report that it "may in the future restart the practice of transacting in cryptocurrencies ('digital assets') for our products and services."
Following a $1.5 billion investment in Bitcoin in February of this year, Tesla in March made Bitcoin a payment option for U.S. customers. Just 2 months later, however, it stopped accepting it, citing environmental concerns.
The company's eccentric CEO, Elon Musk, said that he was concerned about the increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions—particularly coal. Bitcoin mining is the business of using powerful computers to verify transactions on the blockchain and keep the network running smoothly. The process uses a lot of energy, though, and the criticism directed at Bitcoin miners over their effect on the environment reached a fevered pitch earlier this year.
