Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk announced on Thursday at 6:06 a.m. Singapore time, that the value of the whole cryptocurrency market stood at around $2.43 trillion, according to data from Coinmarketcap.com.
Hundreds of billions of dollars were wiped off the entire cryptocurrency market after Musk tweeted that the electric vehicle maker would suspend car purchases using bitcoin.
Around 8:45 a.m., the market capitalization had dropped to around $2.06 trillion, wiping off around $365.85 billion. The market has pared some losses. Since Musk’s tweet, the cryptocurrency market had seen $165.75 billion wiped off its value at around 9:22 a.m. Singapore time, according to CNBC.
Musk cited environmental concerns and said that Tesla is concerned about the rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel.
At around 9:34 a.m. Singapore time, bitcoin was down over 12%, dipping below the $50,000 mark for the first time since Apr. 24, according to CoinDesk data. Despite the recent pullback, bitcoin is still up over 400% in the last 12 months.
The Tesla CEO said the company will not be selling any bitcoin and intends to use it for transactions as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy.