Why Are Elon Musk And Janet Yellen Worried About Bitcoin’s Energy Usage?
4 yearsago 0 Comments 1.5k Views
In the middle of May in 2021, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that the company is no longer accepting payments from its customers using Bitcoin due to concerns about “the rapid increase in fossil fuel usage from Bitcoin mining,”, which has led to fresh scrutiny of the cryptocurrency’s environmental impact. Back in February, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also warned about the environmental impact of Bitcoin, saying that Bitcoin mining creates “staggering” electricity consumption. Why is Musk worried? Musk pointed to data from researchers at the University of Cambridge showing that Bitcoin “mining” has seen a surge in electricity use