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- Chris Sacca owns bitcoin, ethereum, and several other cryptocurrencies.
- Lowercase Capital's billionaire founder flagged crypto's energy usage as a problem.
- Sacca suggested the issue could drive innovation in renewable energy.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Billionaire investor Chris Sacca owns a bunch of cryptocurrencies including bitcoin and ether, and sees their environmental costs as a problem that could spark creative solutions.
"I own a broad basket ranging from early BTC/ETH to shitcoin lottery tickets," he tweeted on Saturday. "The climate impact bums me out," he continued. "But that is the market impetus for a lot of clean energy innovation."
Sacca, the founder of Lowercase Capital, was an early investor in Uber, Twitter, and Instagram. He shifted his focus from venture capital to tackling the climate crisis, voter suppression, and other issues in early 2017.
The billionaire's latest comments were prompted by Mark Cuban, his former "Shark Tank" colleague and a champion of dogecoin, tweeting that he always asks himself what coins can be used for.
Sacca was an early investor in bitcoin, and has been bullish on its prospects for years. "Bought bitcoin at $800," he said in March 2014. The cryptocurrency now trades north of $40,000.
He predicted it would become "institutionally mainstream" in 2017. However, he described it as an "environmental disaster" in 2013 and again in 2017.
The surging energy costs of bitcoin mining are a hot-button issue in the crypto space. Tesla CEO Elon Musk reignited the debate last week when he said his electric-car company would no longer accept bitcoin for vehicle purchases, citing environmental reasons.
"I strongly believe in crypto, but it can't drive a massive increase in fossil fuel use, especially coal," he said.