Elon Musk Says He Spoke With 'North American Bitcoin Miners' About Sustainability

The price immediately shot up $2,000.

By Will Gottsegen

May 24, 2021

2 min read

Elon Musk hosted SNL once, and predictably talked about Dogecoin and crypto. Image: SNL/Twitter

In brief

In a new tweet, Elon Musk said he spoke with "North American Bitcoin miners" about the question of sustainability in crypto.
The price of Bitcoin immediately went up $2,000.

Elon Musk fired off another ambiguous tweet about Bitcoin today, sending the price up about $2,000.

"Spoke with North American Bitcoin miners," Musk wrote at 3:42 pm Eastern. "They committed to publish current & planned renewable usage & to ask miners WW to do so. Potentially promising."

As with all of Musk's tweets, it had an immediate and significant effect on the crypto markets—by 3:57pm, the price of Bitcoin had shot from around $38,000 to over $40,000.

Spoke with North American Bitcoin miners. They committed to publish current & planned renewable usage & to ask miners WW to do so. Potentially promising.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 24, 2021

Michael Saylor—the CEO of the software company MicroStrategy and a devout Bitcoin advocate—said he led a meeting yesterday with Musk and Bitcoin mining companies, such as Argo and Hut 8. He also said these miners "have agreed to form the Bitcoin Mining Council to promote energy usage transparency & accelerate sustainability initiatives worldwide," though it's yet unclear what that means exactly.

Execs from @ArgoBlockchain , @blockcap, @Core_Scientific, @GalaxyDigitalHQ, @HiveBlockchain, @hut8mining, @MarathonDH & @RiotBlockchain were present & decided to establish an organization to standardize energy reporting, pursue industry ESG goals, & educate+grow the marketplace.

— Michael Saylor (@michael_saylor) May 24, 2021

Peter Wall, the CEO of Argo, confirmed that Argo has joined the newly formed "Bitcoin Mining Council."

Great to be part of yesterday’s ground-breaking meeting led by @michaelsaylor with special guest @elonmusk, along with fellow miners. As a founding member of the Bitcoin Mining Council, Argo will push hard for sustainable mining and more transparency.

This is the way!#ARB https://t.co/503flx3X8v

— Peter Wall (@PeterGWall) May 24, 2021

Tesla put $1.5 billion in Bitcoin on its balance sheet back in February and said it would start accepting BTC as payment for its cars. Earlier this month, Musk announced Tesla would no longer accept Bitcoin due to environmental concerns.

Whether Saylor's "Bitcoin Mining Council" can do anything about Bitcoin's climate impact remains to be seen. But it's evidently already having on impact on Musk—and the Bitcoin market as a result.

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