Musk sets bitcoin a Herculean task – Reuters

Musk sets bitcoin a Herculean task – Reuters

Tesla (TSLA.O) boss Elon Musk said on Sunday that his electric-car maker will allow customers to transact with bitcoin again when creating new coins becomes more climate-friendly read more . Tesla's on-off relationship is a big driver of the crypto-asset's value : Musk's latest remarks sent it back above $40,000. He has, though, set an improbably high bar.

So-called bitcoin miners use lashings of energy to generate a new coin every 10 minutes or so. Cambridge University pegs usage at an annualized 97 terawatt hours, roughly the electricity output of Virginia. Knowing how green it is, though, is impossible. One crypto report estimated renewable energy made up 39% of the mix last year; another, a year earlier, claimed bitcoin is already mostly green.