Tesla Inc chief executive Elon Musk announced Wednesday that the American electric vehicle company will now start accepting the world’s largest electronic currency, Bitcoin, as payment for its electric cars.
Mr Musk tweeted, “you can now buy a Tesla with Bitcoin” adding that Bitcoin payment option will also be available to customers outside the U.S. later this year.
He added that Tesla will only use internal and open-source software and that any Bitcoin paid to the company will be retained as Bitcoin and not converted to a fiat currency.
This is coming after Tesla Inc stunned the market with its bet on Bitcoin earlier this year.
In February, the California-based Tesla disclosed its $1.5 billion investment in Bitcoin and said it intended to begin accepting the cryptocurrency as a form of payment.
The world’s leading electronic vehicle maker made the Bitcoin bet after updating its investment policy in January to allow it to buy digital assets.
As reported by Bloomberg, Bitcoin climbed as high as 5.1 percent to $57,204 as of 9:55 a.m. in New York. The token has fluctuated wildly after hitting a record $61,742 on March 13.
Tesla shares dropped about 1.2 per cent to $654.40 on Wednesday, and are up more than 500 per cent in the past year.
The billionaire has often tweeted about cryptocurrency-related topics and recently called Bitcoin “a good thing” to show that he is a supporter of the largest cryptocurrency.
