Elon Musk has proved once again how much power he wields over the value of cryptocurrencies.
The Tesla CEO tweeted a message to his followers that said: "Spoke with North American Bitcoin miners. They committed to publish current & planned renewable usage & to ask miners WW to do so. Potentially promising."
Off the back of the post, the value of Bitcoin shot up dramatically, as did other digital currencies like Ripple, Ethereum and Dogecoin.
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The most popular cryptocurrency was sitting at USD$37,897 before the tweet and minutes later it was suddenly worth $39,895. That's a nearly 9 per cent increase.
While it won't be enough to recoup the losses many had around the world recently, it's still promising to see the digital currency have signs of life after several soul-crushing weeks.
Ripple saw a 23 per cent increase, Ethereum is up 22 per cent and Doge has also been bumped up by 18 per cent.
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The message comes after Elon Musk announced Tesla would no longer allow customers to use Bitcoin to purchase their cars. He added that Tesla will also not sell any Bitcoin in the future.
The tech billionaire was concerned about the environmental impact cryptocurrencies have on the planet due to the incredible amount of electricity needed for coin mining.
"We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel," Musk wrote earlier this month.
"Cryptocurrency is a good idea on many levels and we believe it has a promising future, but this cannot come at a great cost to the environment."
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Musk said the company will be looking into other cryptocurrencies that use less than 1 per cent of Bitcoin's energy mining rate.
It caused the price of Bitcoin to plummet dramatically. According to CoinDesk, the value of the most popular cryptocurrency was at USD$54,174 just before Elon's statement was issued and in the minutes after, it bottomed out at $52,314.
The coin suffered another cruel blow when China announced last week that it would ban its financial institutions from handling cryptocurrency transactions.
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The measure prevents banks and online payment systems from providing any services that involve cryptocurrency. But it will still be legal for individuals to hold their own cryptocurrency wallets.
While we're still a far cry away from the value of Bitcoin before the month of May, the digital currency has just copped its first major win in weeks so watch this space.
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