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Tesla CEO Elon Musk Accused Of Playing With Bitcoin “For The Press”

According to financial expert Carol Alexander, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is “doing it for the coverage” after his Bitcoin remarks were lambasted.

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, continues to be an important figure in the world of Bitcoin, as he claims to know the individual who invented it. Satoshi Nakamoto is a pseudonym used to identify the unknown inventor of Bitcoin. Reportedly, Nick Szabo, appears to have more than anyone else helped develop those ideas over time.’

Mr Musk is a well-known figure in the crypto and technology world, having co-founded Paypal, SpaceX, and Tesla; while Mr Szabo is a computer scientist recognized for his study of digital contracts and cryptocurrency. Tesla announced last March that it would start taking Bitcoin as payment, but this promise was abandoned just two months later.

The price of Bitcoin dropped by more than twenty percent in response to the news. However, Elon Musk stated back in July that Tesla “is likely” to again take Bitcoin for payments. He explained:

“I wanted a little bit more due diligence to confirm that the percentage of renewable energy usage is most likely at or above 50 percent, and that there is a trend towards increasing that number, and if so Tesla would resume accepting Bitcoin. Most likely the answer is that Tesla would resume accepting Bitcoin.”

 


According to finance expert at the University of Sussex, Carol Alexander, Mr Musk does it for the attention.

She remarked:

“Elon Musk gets a lot press and he uses Bitcoin to get a lot of press. There’s tonnes of other companies who accept Bitcoin, they just don’t make a big hoo-ha about it. The reason Elon Musk makes a big noise about it is because he wants the press coverage.”

While Musk has influence, the creator of SpaceX isn’t to be taken seriously, according to Professor Alexander. She stated:

“Elon Musk certainly has influence, there is no doubt. With Dogecoin, he makes that coin surge 500 percent just with his comments. People like influencers, Musk and many others, are able to use sentiment to pump up prices of certain cryptocurrencies. What Elon Musk is doing is laughing and saying ‘I bet I can move the price of Dogecoin up 500 percent in the next 10 minutes without leaving my bed’. He just gets a kick out of influencing and flex his muscles.”

The wider use of Bitcoin is one of the best indicators of how successful it will be. The more popular figures and companies accept Bitcoin, the higher its value rises. Last week, Goldman Sachs predicted that this year’s Bitcoin price would top out at $100,000 as the cryptocurrency continues to take market share from gold.

Bitcoin currently has a market capitalization of about $700 billion, according to Wall Street bankers. While Bitcoin’s use of natural resources might be an obstacle to institutional adoption, the bank said this would not dampen demand for the asset.

 

There’s no telling what will happen to Bitcoin in the future. It has a history of volatility, though. It hit new highs in November, fell this week, and then immediately rose again.

On Monday, Bitcoin had a hard day, followed by a sharp drop that took it to below $40,000 (about £29,000), which some thought was a crucial price point for the cryptocurrency’s success. Analysts had worried that if Bitcoin dropped below that, it might fall even more as market confidence continued to deteriorate.

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