Bitcoin pops back above $39,000 after Musk suggests Tesla could accept the cryptocurrency again

Bitcoin's price surged after Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Sunday the electric vehicle maker could accept bitcoin transactions again in future.

Bitcoin jumped to $39,095, up 9% in the last 24 hours and up from the $34,880 level at the start of Sunday trading, according to Coinbase. 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.

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."

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.

Hundreds of billions of dollars were wiped off the cryptocurrency market after Musk tweeted in May about Tesla's suspension of car purchases using bitcoin. Musk's past tweets have also been linked to moves in the stock market — ranging from so-called meme stocks such as GameStop, to the investor of viral song "Baby Shark."

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