Bitcoin’s price surged after Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Sunday the electric vehicle maker could accept bitcoin transactions again in future.
The cryptocurrency then took another leg higher above $40,000 on bullish comments by legendary investor Paul Tudor Jones.
Bitcoin jumped 12.5% to $40,178 in 24 hours, according to Coinbase. The cryptocurrency started Sunday trading at just $34,880. Since the start of the year, bitcoin has surged more than 30%, though it has experienced wild swings. It hit an all-time high of $64,829.14 in April and hit a low near $30,000 in May following a 30% intraday crash.
“I like bitcoin as a portfolio diversifier. Everybody asks me what should I do with my bitcoin? The only thing I know for certain, I want 5% in gold, 5% in bitcoin, 5% in cash, 5% in commodities,” Tudor Jones said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Monday.
“For me, it’s just a way of kind of foundationally looking at how do I protect my wealth over time it’s a great diversifier again, I look at bitcoin as a story of wealth,” Jones added. “I look at crypto as a story of wealth. Others will argue this is a different ecosystem. It’s transactional in nature.”
Bitcoin went up about another $700 shortly after the investor’s comments.
The weekend gains came after Musk said Sunday that Tesla will resume allowing bitcoin transactions “when there’s confirmation of reasonable (~50%) clean energy usage by miners with positive future trend.”
Tesla halted car purchases with bitcoin in mid-May, citing concerns over the climate impact of cryptocurrency mining.
Crypto mining requires massive amounts of energy to fuel powerful computers — bitcoin mining consumes more energy than entire countries such as Finland and Belgium, according to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index.
