A sudden price drop in the crypto markets along with the deepening points loss in the dow jones point to a a slow and steady downward trend as of late. Is the bull run of 2021 over? Are these the marks of the beginning of something much worse to come? A major recession, a new crypto winter? What could possibly be next? Any comments and thoughts are more than welcome.
You can blame Elon Musk for trolling the entire crypto community and the whole market for the sudden crash. He announced that Tesla will no longer accept Bitcoin payments because according to Musk, cryptocurrencies are hurting the environment. Moreover, environmentalists were claiming that Bitcoin mining was taking a large toll on electricity, which is solely based on fossil fuels, especially coal, and were against Tesla's option to receive Bitcoin payments.
What an irony, the large scale of battery production isn't that environmentally friendly either, but no one is commenting on that.
The electricity spent for bitcoin has reached enormous sizes. According to the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance (CCAF), Bitcoin currently consumes around 110 Terawatt Hours per year — 0.55% of global electricity production, or roughly equivalent to the annual energy draw of small countries like Malaysia or Sweden. Certainly, something must be done about this. But I don't think Elon is trying to find a solution for this problem.