As much as $365 billion wiped off cryptocurrency market after Tesla stops car purchases with bitcoin

As much as $365 billion wiped off cryptocurrency market after Tesla stops car purchases with bitcoin

GUANGZHOU, China — Hundreds of billions of dollars were wiped off the entire cryptocurrency market after CEO Elon Musk tweeted that the electric vehicle maker would . At around 6:06 a.m. Singapore time on Thursday when Musk made the announcement, the value of the whole cryptocurrency market stood at around $2.43 trillion, according to data from Coinmarketcap.com. Around 8:45 a.m., the market capitalization had dropped to around $2.06 trillion, wiping off around $365.85 billion. The market has pared some losses. Since Musk's tweet, the cryptocurrency market had seen $165.75 billion wiped off its value at around 9:22 a.m. Singapore time. In February, and planned to accept the cryptocurrency for payments. Musk cited environmental concerns on Thursday and said Tesla is "concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel." Bitcoin is not issued by a single entity like a central bank. Instead, it is maintained by a network of so-called "miners." These miners use purpose-built computers that require a lot of energy to solve complex mathematical puzzles in order for bitcoin transactions to go through. At around 9:34 a.m. Singapore time, was down over 12%, dipping