Elon Musk's brother Kimbal Musk has admitted that Tesla was "very ignorant" of the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies when it purchased Bitcoin worth $1.5 billion last year and also planned to allow people to purchase electric cars with cryptocurrency.
A Tesla board member, Kimbal told TechCrunch that the company had no idea about the climate impact of cryptocurrencies.
"When we invested in Bitcoin, we were very ignorant. We had no idea of the environmental impact, we literally didn't know, we were like this seems like a good store of value and a good way to diversify assets," Kimbal was quoted as saying in the report late on Wednesday.
While Tesla "didn't necessarily regret" its Bitcoin purchase, Kimbal said he hoped that the Blockchain industry can move to a more environmentally-friendly infrastructure of producing cryptocurrencies.
"Tesla will not be selling any Bitcoin and we intend to use it for transactions as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy," he added. Kimbal has served on Tesla's board since 2004.
The company started accepting Bitcoin in late March last year. Elon Musk had said that Tesla will no longer sell any more of the $1.5 billion Bitcoins it purchased earlier this year.
After less than two months of going bullish on Bitcoin, Tesla applied brakes on the popular cryptocurrency as a payment mode to buy its electric vehicles, citing environmental harm.
Musk then said that the electric car maker will not sell any bitcoin and intends to use bitcoin for transactions as soon as mining moves to more sustainable energy. Tesla sold some of that bitcoin in the first quarter of 2021.
IANS