Elon Musk has called Bitcoin a hedge against inflation and the “AI arms race,” stressing that the energy on which BTC is based cannot be counterfeited.
Musk: Bitcoin cannot be counterfeited, unlike fiat currencies
Businessman and Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that Bitcoin is able to protect investors from the “printing press” of governments, which, according to analysts, may begin massive funding for the development of artificial intelligence.
Musk praised the proof-of-work energy model on which Bitcoin is based, calling it “immune to the depreciation of fiat currencies” because “energy cannot be counterfeited.”
“This is why Bitcoin is based on energy: you can print fake fiat money — and every government in history has done it — but you can’t counterfeit energy,” Musk wrote on X (Twitter) on Tuesday.
His comment was in response to a post by the analytical resource Zerohedge, which linked the growth in demand for Bitcoin and precious metals to “currency depreciation to finance government spending on AI competition” among the world’s leading economies.
“AI is a new global arms race, and capital spending will ultimately be financed by the US and Chinese governments,” the Zerohedge publication said.
Musk returns to the topic of Bitcoin after a three-year hiatus
This is Musk’s first serious statement about Bitcoin in the last three years — since November 2022, when he predicted a “long crypto winter” after the FTX collapse.
“BTC will survive, but the winter will be long,” Musk wrote on November 14, 2022, when Bitcoin fell to $16,000.
The FTX collapse, caused by the misuse of user funds, led to investor losses of $8.9 billion and is considered the main trigger for the market drop.
Environmental issue still open
Musk has not yet commented on the environmental friendliness of Bitcoin mining, although he has previously criticized it for its use of fossil fuels.
In May 2021, Tesla stopped accepting Bitcoin payments for cars, which caused the price of BTC to fall by 6% in an hour – from $54,800 to about $51,600.
Despite this, Tesla has not sold most of its BTC and left open the question of a possible return to accepting crypto payments if the share of clean energy in mining exceeds 50%.
According to analyst Willy Wu and venture capitalist Daniel Batten, the share of renewable energy in the Bitcoin network has already exceeded 55% – a record high in history.
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