Bitcoin Daily: Gwyneth Paltrow Crypto Miner Firm TeraWulf Drops 20% on First Day of Trading; Tesla Testing Dogecoin Payments for Merchandise

TeraWulf, which has seen investments from Gwyneth Paltrow, has seen falling shares during its public Nasdaq debut on Tuesday (Dec. 14), Bloomberg reported.

TeraWulf’s objective is to offer more environmentally-conscious ways to process crypto transactions. The firm went public after a merger with Ikonics, an imaging tech company.

After initially being listed at $25, the stock was as low as $20.02 — a 20% decline.

The slump comes with a large drop in other crypto miner shares, and those kinds of companies often use huge amounts of power and compete to win freshly-minted tokens to process transactions. The quantity of electricity used is comparable to what some entire nations use.

According to Bloomberg, TeraWulf plans to have around 800 megawatts of mining capacity deployed by 2025, powered by alternate energy forms like nuclear, hydro and solar power.

The crypto mining stocks have been hit badly after a selloff in bitcoin prices, along with doubts about profitability. DA Davidson & Co analyst Chris Brendler said the hash rate, or the speed of mining, is back to highs not seen since before China banned mining.

“Profitability has fallen dramatically,” Brendler said. “The price of Bitcoin going down and global hash rate going up means bad news for miners.”

Meanwhile, Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk announced that the electric car manufacturer will begin accepting dogecoin as payment for some merchandise on a trial basis, per a Reuters report Tuesday (Dec. 14).

“Tesla will make some merch buyable with Doge & see how it goes,” Musk said in a tweet, although he did not clarify what merchandise is eligible to be bought with dogecoin.

Following this announcement, the price of the meme-based cryptocurrency was up 24% early in the day.

Read more: Tesla Testing Dogecoin Payments for Merchandise

Last month, PYMNTS reported that in El Salvador’s “bitcoin city,” bitcoin mining will take place by tapping into the Conchagua volcano’s geothermal energy.

According to El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, the idea will be to expand on El Salvador’s launch of bitcoin as a mainstream payment method.

“Invest here and make all the money you want,” Bukele said. “This is a fully ecological city that works and is energized by a volcano.”

The funding will come from value-added tax (VAT), used to fund bitcoin bond issuance. Half of that will go towards infrastructure and half to funding city services.

Related: Volcano to Power Miners in El Salvador’s Bitcoin City