Bitcoin investors have concerns about environmental impact and Musk
Bitcoin investors are concerned about the environmental impact of the cryptocurrency and the influence Elon Musk has in manipulating the market, research has found.
A survey of 837 UK investors by financial markets platform uk.Investing.com found that 32 per cent of Bitcoin investors sold the cryptocurrency last month and one in five attributed their sale to Tesla chief executive Musk’s comments on 13 May about cryptocurrencies being bad for the environment.
The majority (79 per cent) of investors would favour a greener cryptocurrency and 73 per cent expressed support for policies that would reduce the power of big influencers such as Musk when it comes to manipulating financial markets.
Nearly a third (34 per cent) said that cryptocurrencies in general “are too volatile.”
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“Bitcoin has an energy problem, as its network consumes more power than entire countries, like the Netherlands, or Pakistan,” said Jesse Cohen, senior analyst at uk.Investing.
“Ripple and Cardano, for example, are two cryptocurrencies which have less environmental impact than Bitcoin and are more efficient in terms of their mining and transaction environmental costs.
“After being hailed and crowned as king of the crypto community, Elon Musk has made himself some new enemies lately, following his recent shock about-face on Bitcoin.
“For an asset whose price is driven mostly by psychological sentiment and momentum, Bitcoin could have a hard time recovering from this and may never revisit their record highs again.”
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