Bitcoin: reasons why it rises and falls in price 0:53
(CNN Business) -
Elon Musk once again launched bitcoin on a new volatile journey.
The price of bitcoin is on the rise after Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk tweeted on Sunday that the electric car company would start accepting the cryptocurrency again once at least half can be mined with clean energy.
"When there is confirmation of reasonable clean energy use (~ 50%) by miners with a positive future trend, Tesla will resume bitcoin transactions," Musk tweeted Sunday afternoon.
Musk said nothing about how he expected clean energy use to be monitored, nor did his company immediately respond to a request from CNN Business for comment.
The cryptocurrency's price rose to more than $ 39,400 early Monday morning, roughly a 12.5% increase from the day before, according to Coinbase.
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Tesla began accepting bitcoin transactions for its electric vehicles in late March.
But in May, Musk said his company was suspending plans to accept cryptocurrency as payment.
Musk cited the high environmental cost of bitcoin as a reason for the move, after months of being bullish on it.
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Bitcoin has been incredibly volatile since the beginning of the year.
It started in January at around $ 29,400, according to Coinbase, and hit $ 64,899 in April.
Musk's tweets appear to have contributed to his volatility.
After he announced that Tesla would no longer accept bitcoin, the price fell 12%.
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Musk said in Sunday's tweet that his company has sold only about 10% of its bitcoin holdings "to confirm that BTC could be easily liquidated without moving the market."
Other cryptocurrencies also rose early Monday.
Ethereum was up more than 7.7% on Monday morning, according to Coinbase, while dogecoin was up about 5%.
- Rishi Iyengar contributed to this report.
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