Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced by a tweet that the company is now accepting vehicle purchases made with Bitcoin. On social media, the maverick entrepreneur has long been a passionate promoter of cryptocurrencies.
Accordingly, he declared that Bitcoin paid to Tesla would be retained as is and not converted to (traditional) fiat currency. When it comes to processing payments, he said “Tesla is using only internal and open source software, and operates Bitcoin nodes directly.”
Right now, only Tesla’s US customers are allowed to pay with the aforementioned cryptocurrency. Musk also noted that the (Bitcoin) payment option would be expanded outside the US sometime later this year. However, he didn’t provide further details.
You can now buy a Tesla with Bitcoin
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 24, 2021
Last month, Tesla bought US$1.5 billion (~RM6.2 billion) worth of bitcoin and indicated then that it planned to accept the cryptocurrency as payment for its cars. Now, unsurprisingly, the former’s fortunes may be irrevocably entwined with the latter.
According to CNBC, over the last 12 months, Tesla share prices rose from about US$100 (~RM413) to over US$600 (~RM2,478), while bitcoin jumped from about US$7,000 (~RM28,907) to over US$55,000 (~RM227,123).
We did it!!!
You can now buy a Tesla with #Bitcoin
All my worlds are colliding:
Apple Pay + Bitcoin + Tesla = ♥️ pic.twitter.com/ZJMyLCXeWB— Michael Rihani (@MichaelRihani) March 24, 2021
In another Tesla-related news, Musk recently denied claims that cameras on Tesla cars were used to spy on the Chinese government. He said the company would “get shut down” if it used cars that way.
(Source: CNBC)
