Tesla halts Bitcoin purchases of cars, Bitcoin plunges 17%, dives from highs to $10,000, Shiba Inu coin plummets 40% in one day

Original title: "It collapsed! The "retail investor leader" shorted Bitcoin and it plunged 17% from a high of $10,000"

Who would have thought that the latest blow to Bitcoin came not from regulators, but from Tesla, which made its first investment this year and was the first among leading technology companies to accept Bitcoin payments.

After the U.S. stock market closed on Wednesday, Eastern Time, Tesla CEO Musk suddenly announced on social media: "Tesla has stopped using Bitcoin to buy cars. We are worried that Bitcoin mining and trading will lead to a rapid increase in the consumption of fossil fuels, especially coal, which has the worst impact on all fossil fuel emissions."

At the same time, Musk said that cryptocurrency is a good idea from many aspects. Tesla believes that it has a promising future, but this cannot be achieved at a significant cost to the environment. Tesla will not sell any Bitcoin. As long as Bitcoin mining transitions to other sustainable energy sources as soon as possible, Tesla intends to use Bitcoin for transactions. Tesla is also seeking to use other cryptocurrencies that consume less energy than Bitcoin.

Musk released the above news less than two months after Wall Street Journal discovered that Tesla's US official website began to accept Bitcoin payments. About two weeks ago, Tesla just disclosed in its financial report that it spent $1.5 billion to buy Bitcoin in the first quarter of this year, and sold some Bitcoin in the quarter, making a net profit of $101 million. Tesla's Chief Financial Officer Zachary Kirkhorn said in a conference call that Bitcoin holdings decreased by 10% in the quarter, and this part of the reduction was slightly helpful to the company's quarterly performance growth. Tesla will continue to invest in Bitcoin and believes in the "long-term value" of Bitcoin.

Although Musk did not say that Tesla would give up its Bitcoin investment, the news on Wednesday still triggered another wave of selling in the cryptocurrency market. The declines of many mainstream and recently popular cryptocurrencies widened, and Bitcoin and blockchain concept stocks fell after the market.

After the U.S. stock market closed on Wednesday, the trading price of Bitcoin fell by more than $3,000 in just about 40 minutes, a percentage drop of nearly 6%. The lowest price on some platforms fell below $51,600, a drop of more than $6,000 from the intraday high, a percentage drop of more than 10%; Dogecoin (DOGE)'s intraday decline widened to more than 12%, and Shiba Inu coin (SHIB), commonly known as shitcoin in China, fell by more than 40% in 24 hours; Tesla and the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase both fell by more than 1%; among blockchain concept stocks, Bitcoin mining machine giant Canaan Technology fell more than 6% after the market, China Netcom fell more than 5%, and Riot Blockchain fell more than 4%.