Bitcoin pops by about 4% after Elon Musk spoke with North American Bitcoin miners to promote sustainability

Cryptocurrency lives and dies by Elon Musk’s tweets. Just imagine owning an asset that goes up and down in value with simple tweets from popular figures like Tesla CEO Elon Musk. That’s exactly what happened to Bitcoin.

Over the weekend, bitcoin fell as low as $33,000. Then today, a tweet from Elon Musk sent the price of bitcoin surging by about 4% Monday afternoon. At about 3:42 PM, Musk tweeted saying:

“Spoke with North American Bitcoin miners. They committed to publish current & planned renewable usage & to ask miners WW to do so. Potentially promising.”

A few minutes of Musk’s tweet, the price had shot up to more than $39,500 before dropping to $38,683.70 as of the time of writing. When all the dust settles, bitcoin was up more than 17% in the last 24 hours.

In a follow-up to Musk’s tweet, Microstrategy CEO Michael Saylor also noted that he hosted a meeting between the Tesla CEO and some bitcoin miners that led to the formation of the Bitcoin Mining Council, which will promote sustainability.

“Yesterday I was pleased to host a meeting between @elonmusk & the leading Bitcoin miners in North America. The miners have agreed to form the Bitcoin Mining Council to promote energy usage transparency & accelerate sustainability initiatives worldwide.”

Yesterday I was pleased to host a meeting between @elonmusk & the leading Bitcoin miners in North America. The miners have agreed to form the Bitcoin Mining Council to promote energy usage transparency & accelerate sustainability initiatives worldwide. https://t.co/EHgLZ9zvDK

— Michael Saylor⚡️ (@saylor) May 24, 2021

Both Musk and Saylor are two of the biggest bitcoin investors. Since they have so much invested in the cryptocurrency, they cannot afford to let it fall any lower. On December 21, 2020, MicroStrategy announced that it has purchased a total of 70,470 bitcoins for $1.125 billion at an average price of $15,964 per bitcoin. On February 8, Tesla revealed in a regulatory filing that it bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin.

As part of the SEC filing, Tesla said:

“We hold and may acquire digital assets that may be subject to volatile market prices, impairment, and unique risks of loss.” In January 2021, Tesla said it updated its investment policy to provide more flexibility to further diversify and maximize returns on its cash that is not required to maintain adequate operating liquidity.