Bitcoin bombshell: Tesla could start accepting bitcoin again - Musk in talks with miners

Throughout the month of May SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has been sending out messages of support for cryptocurrencies - but last month the billionaire’s company declared Tesla would be halting their acceptance of bitcoin as a payment method. The Tesla CEO was concerned about bitcoin's energy usage, although a recent study claims bitcoin mining only uses a fraction of the energy that the traditional banking system does. This study by Galaxy Digital Mining echoed a similar finding by the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Alternative Finance.

Last week Mr Musk made a dramatic U-turn when he tweeted that he had spoken with bitcoin miners in North America, and they "committed to publish current and planned renewable usage”.

Mr Musk added that he was encouraged that these miners will ask their global rivals to use renewable energy as well, a development he dubbed "potentially promising."

Many experts are now predicting Mr Musk will reaffirm a joint-statement he made with Twitter's Jack Dorsey that bitcoin mining is an "incentive for renewable energy", with an announcement that Tesla will begin accepting payments with bitcoin again.

In a tweet at the end of April, Mr Dorsey said that "bitcoin incentivises renewable energy", to which Mr Musk replied "True".

Speaking to Express.co.uk cryptocurrency expert George, of Cryptosrus, has claimed Tesla's renewal of bitcoin as a payment method "is 100 percent going to happen".

Referring to a "secret" meeting between Mr Musk, major bitcoin miners and Michael Saylor, the CEO of MicroStrategy, George said: "I think Elon probably knew what he was doing when he caused the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) about bitcoin’s energy usage.

"He knew it would cause the community to come up with a solution and rally together.

"And it did, look at the secret meeting Michael and the miners had with Elon.

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"On balance, I support the latter."

In the last 24 hours the global cryptocurrency market has risen in value by 8 percent, with the market capital rising to $1.64 trillion(£1.16 trillion).

Express.co.uk has contacted Elon Musk’s representatives and Tesla for comment.

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