Bitcoin surges near $40,000 after Elon Musk says Tesla will resume crypto payments when mining is cleaner

Bitcoin surges near $40,000 after Elon Musk says Tesla will resume crypto payments when mining is cleaner

Traded above $39,000 for a second day on Monday after Elon Musk tweeted would accept payment in cryptocurrency again once mining can be done using cleaner energy. "When there's confirmation of reasonable (~50%) clean energy usage by miners with positive future trend, Tesla will resume allowing Bitcoin transactions," the billionaire . He was responding to a that quoted Magda Wierzycka, a South African billionaire businesswoman and CEO of asset manager Sygnia, saying that Musk's bitcoin-related tweets should have led to a regulatory investigation. According to Wierzycka, Musk deliberately pumped up bitcoin's value and then sold a chunk of his exposure at its peak. But the Tesla boss disputed this claim, saying "Tesla only sold ~10% of holdings to confirm BTC could be liquidated easily without moving market." Bitcoin was last trading 11% higher around $39,530 on Monday as of 3:20 a.m. ET, and is up 36% so far this year. "The charts suggest consolidation followed by a rally through $41,000 targets further gains to around $44,000," Jeffrey Halley, a senior market analyst at OANDA, said. Musk revealed in February his electric car company and that it would start accepting it as payment for its vehicles. Barely three months later, and