Bitcoin Drops to Pre-Tesla BTC Acceptance Prices

The value of bitcoin (BTC) has dropped below its value when Elon Musk first announced that Tesla would allow BTC holders to buy products from the motor company in February.

On Feb. 8, BTC saw a huge surge in value after Musk announced that Tesla had invested $1.5 billion of its cash reserves into the cryptocurrency. The electric car company later confirmed on March 24 that it would also accept BTC payments for Tesla products.

During this latter period, the price went from around $39,000 to nearly $65,000 just weeks later, showing heightened investor confidence in BTC after the billionaire put his weight behind it. Since then, Musk has systematically brought down the value of the coin in a wild U-turn.

The first major drop in value came on May 13 after Musk announced that Tesla would no longer accept BTC as payment, claiming that the upkeep of the coin was too damaging to the environment. 

“We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel,” Musk Tweeted. “Cryptocurrency is a good idea… but this cannot come at great cost to the environment.”

On May 17, however, Musk clarified that Tesla has not sold any of its Bitcoin which should have rallied some confidence in the coin. The opposite has been true though. Bitcoin reached a more than three month low of $38,670 on May 19.

While Musk’s actions on Twitter have seriously harmed BTC, the South African-born futurist has been doing wonders for Dogecoin. His tweets have previously impacted a massive surge in the price of DOGE, which at one point climbed nearly 15,000% since the beginning of 2021.