You can now buy a Tesla with Bitcoin, tweets Elon Musk

• Tesla co-founder Elon Musk has announced that Tesla cars can now be purchased using Bitcoin.
  
• Earlier in February, Tesla revealed that it had invested $1.5 billion of its excess cash into Bitcoin in order to “maximise returns”.
  
• Musk added that Tesla will retain the Bitcoin received against sales instead of converting it into fiat currency.

To buy a brand-new electric vehicle from US-based Tesla, now you can use cryptocurrency Bitcoin. The company’s co-founder Elon Musk announced on Twitter that the option to pay in Bitcoin is live, and that the company will not convert Bitcoin to fiat currency.

After investing $1.5 billion into Bitcoin earlier in February, Tesla revealed that it would start accepting payments in Bitcoin. However, how and when this would be done, remained unknown.


As of March 24, Bitcoin has been added as a payment method along with card and Apple Pay, according to some posters on Twitter. However, we were unable to see the option on Tesla’s website, yet.

Tesla had reported in its SEC filing that it had invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin – cash that it didn’t immediately require. In its filing, the electric car maker said that its investment in Bitcoin was intended to “maximise returns”.

Musk said that Tesla is using internal and open-source software. Plus, the company is operating Bitcoin nodes directly. Further, he said that Tesla won’t convert the Bitcoin it receives into fiat currency, which is interesting since the investment was made only out of excess cash reserves.

If enough Tesla customers switch to Bitcoin as a mode of payment, it could signal an important milestone for cryptocurrency as a mainstream payment mechanism.

Tesla not the first company to invest in Bitcoin

Tesla is not the first company to convert a portion of its cash into cryptocurrency. Earlier in 2020, the US-based business intelligence company MicroStrategy purchased $250 million worth Bitcoin, and announced plans to raise $400 million more to buy more of the cryptocurrency.

Square – another US-based financial services company headed by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey – also joined by picking up $50 million worth Bitcoin.

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