Illustration – Photo: Reuters. In a status line (tweet) on the social network Twitter on May 12, Tesla CEO (CEO) Elon Musk suddenly announced that this electric car company stopped accepting Bitcoin as a means of payment when customers buy a car. . This statement by Mr. Musk – who has expressed a pro-crypto stance – shocked investors and caused a sell-off. The reason the world’s second-richest billionaire gave for the reversal is the risks that virtual currencies pose to the global environment. Bitcoin price immediately dropped after Mr. Musk’s tweet was posted. At more than 7:00 am on May 13, Vietnam time, Bitcoin price according to data on Coinmarketcap.com page slipped below $ 50,000, down more than 13% compared to the time 24 hours ago. Many other “hot” virtual currencies also dropped sharply, such as Ethereum down more than 6%, Dogecoin sliding 14%… In February, Musk revealed that Tesla had poured $1.5 billion into Bitcoin and said the company would soon accept Bitcoin as a means of payment when customers buy a car. That information immediately pushed the Bitcoin price up 20%. By March, he said Tesla customers were able to pay with Bitcoin. In a tweet on May 12, Musk said Tesla will not sell a single Bitcoin, but instead intends to use Bitcoin for transactions as soon as Bitcoin mining moves to using other energy sources. more sustainable quantity. “We are also looking at other cryptocurrencies that use less than 1% of electricity like Bitcoin,” Musk wrote. Bitcoins are “mined” by competing high-performance computers solving complex math problems, and the process consumes enormous amounts of power. The source of electricity for Bitcoin mining is usually thermal power, especially coal-fired power plants, posing a great concern about environmental pollution. At current rates, Bitcoin mining pools used as much energy as the entire Netherlands in 2019, according to data from the University of Cambridge and the International Energy Agency (IEA). Musk himself is a supporter of virtual currencies, and his statements often cause cryptocurrency prices to fluctuate wildly. However, he is also an advocate of clean technology. “Cryptocurrency is a good idea in many ways, and we believe it has a promising future. But that can’t come with a huge loss to the environment,” Musk said. Bitcoin price movement in the last 7 days – Source: Trading View. According to blockchain analysis companies, Bitcoin could in theory be traceable, raising the possibility of “green” Bitcoins having a higher price tag. Stronger climate change policies by countries around the world can also help in this. However, some Bitcoin advocates say that the current financial system – with millions of employees and computers in air-conditioned offices – also uses an overwhelming amount of electricity.

Illustrative image – Photo: Reuters. Ethereum is “occupying waves” in the virtual money market because of its rapid growth. In the past 1 week, the second largest virtual currency in the world has increased by nearly 20%, surpassing USD 4,000 for the first time in the session on May 10. If counted in the past 1 month, Ethereum price has nearly doubled. At nearly 8:00 am on May 11 in Vietnam time, the Ethereum price according to the data on Coinmarketcap.com was $ 3,933, far exceeding the level of $ 176 a year ago. Another virtual currency that has also seen a dramatic rise recently is Dogecoin. However, there is a big difference in the uptrend of Dogecoin and Ethereum that CNBC pointed out. That is, Dogecoin price is pushed up mainly by the status lines (tweets) on the social network Twitter and the “inundation” of the crowd of individual investors on the Reddit forum. Meanwhile, Ethereum has the backing of institutional investors and is heavily chosen for multi-million USD NFT transactions. Ethereum is built on blockchain technology like Bitcoin, but Ethereum’s proponents do not view the virtual currency as a form of “digital gold” – a name attributed to Bitcoin. Instead, many investors, including billionaire Mark Cuban, consider Ethereum to be more applicable. One use of Ethereum is as infrastructure for the decentralized Internet, and people can develop applications on the Ethereum network. With a market cap of nearly $ 482 billion on May 10, Ethereum is now larger than the total capitalization of beverage company Coca-Cola, social network Snap, and Ford Motor, combined. In the world of virtual money, Ethereum is second only to Bitcoin – the virtual currency with a market cap of $ 1.1 trillion. If you bought Ethereum earlier this year, you can now pocket a pretty good return. Ethereum virtual currency price movements in the past 1 year. Unit: USD / Ethereum – Source: Trading View. According to CNBC estimates, with $ 1,000 buying Ethereum on Jan. 1 at $ 731, investors had the equivalent of $ 5,711 on May 10 when Ethereum’s price peaked at $ 4,174. The return on this investment is 471%. This rate of return is higher than the return on Bitcoin investment. If you spend $ 1,000 to buy Bitcoin at the beginning of the year, the investor currently has $ 1,948, equivalent to a near 95% return. However, this does not mean that Ethereum will certainly continue to bring big profits for its investors in the future. Experts always recommend that investors should not pour into virtual money an amount greater than the amount of damage they can accept.