Bitcoin Bounces From $30,000 Low as Elon Musk Tweets 'Diamond Hands'
Bitcoin bounced from multi-month lows Wednesday after Tesla (TSLA) - Get Report founder and CEO Elon Musk indicated his clean energy car company could hold its billion-dollar position in the world's biggest digital currency.
Musk, whose criticism of bitcoin's energy use, coupled with a suggestion he could sell his $1.5 billion in holdings acquired earlier this year, helped -- along with a renewed crackdown from China -- tilt the digital currency into its biggest tailspin of the year this month, with prices falling below the $30,000 mark.
However, Musk tweeted Wednesday emojis of so-called "diamond hands", images that are typically interpreted as indications of a "hold" strategy for key assets.
Bitcoin prices were last seen trading at $39,950.00 each in mid-day trading following Musk's Tweet, after dropping as low at $29,995.00 on European exchanges Wednesday, a move that marks a 50% slump from the all-time high of $64,829.14 it reached on April 15.
Bitcoin prices have struggled to recover from Musk's comments last week after he courted anger within the crypto community when he said the clean energy carmaker would no longer accept the digital token as payment -- nor add to its $1.5 billion quarter-end holdings -- until developers found a way for it to consume less energy during the mining process.
Bank of America's closely-watched Fund Managers' Survey, published Tuesday, noted Tuesday that 43% of those polled described "long bitcoin" as the industry's most-crowded trade, with 75% describing the world's biggest cryptocurrency as a 'bubble'.
The bank also published a report earlier this year that detailed the heavy environmental cost of bitcoin's complicated settlement procedure, noting that the CO2 emissions required to "mine" each transaction are at similar levels to that of Greece, a top fifty global economy, at around 60 tons.
Musk, who began accepting bitcoin as payment for Tesla vehicles in March, said he was concerned about the "rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions", citing the use of coal to power the controversial process.
Tesla shares were marked 3.2% lower in early trading on the Nasdaq to change hands at $559.62 each, a move that would extend their year-to-date decline past 20%.
