The largest cryptocurrency dropped as much as 15% to just above US$46,000, before paring some of the retreat. It was down about 6% to US$51,210 as of 7:03 a.m. in London on Thursday. Other tokens such Ether and Dogecoin also slid. The rush to sell briefly caused outages at some cryptocurrency exchanges. Bitcoin is still up more than fivefold in the past year.
Tesla Inc’s CEO Elon Musk said the electric-vehicle manufacturer is suspending purchases using Bitcoin, triggering a slide in the digital currency.
In a post on Twitter Wednesday, May 12, Musk cited concerns about “rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions,” while signaling that Tesla might accept other cryptocurrencies if they are much less energy-intensive. He also said the company won’t be selling any of the Bitcoin it holds.
