Bitcoin increased by five per cent after Elon Musk made it public that people can now purchase Tesla vehicles with one of the most popular cryptocurrencies in the world.
The company’s CEO tweeted early Wednesday that the automotive giant would begin accepting bitcoin payment. The choice is available to US citizens now, but Musk said that the option would become available worldwide later this year.
“Tesla is using only internal & open source software & operates Bitcoin nodes directly,” Musk said. “Bitcoin paid to Tesla will be retained as Bitcoin, not converted to fiat currency.”
Here is the CEO’s original tweet:
You can now buy a Tesla with Bitcoin
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 24, 2021
Nodes refer to computers that validate bitcoin transactions.
Musk posted the tweet soon after Twitter users observed the updated bitcoin support for all Tesla vehicles across online US stores.
Soon, hashtags like “Tesla,” “Elon,” and “Bitcoin” soon became trending across the platform.
The price of bitcoin got up to $56.360 at 4:20 a.m. ET.
It is up 90% year-to-date and more than 800% over the past year.
The bitcoin payment details on the company’s website were directed to a web wallet address on BTC.com, The Block reported.
The manufacturer revealed last month that it invested $1.5 billion in the digital asset and claimed it would soon accept it as future payment for products. Reports showed that Tesla used the crypto exchange Coinbase to complete the purchase.
Tesla shares bumped up by 2% in pre-market trading this Wednesday.
