Tesla Now Accepting Bitcoin

Tesla Now Accepting Bitcoin

Back in February 2021, Tesla made global headlines following its acquisition of $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin. This is one of the largest private investments in bitcoin from a firm and formally marked the company’s entry into the market. Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, has been a cryptocurrency supporter for a while now so this was not a complete surprise. 

At the time, the company stated that there were plans to eventually accept bitcoin as a form of payment for Tesla products and that the $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin was to create liquidity. Now, it seems these plans have come into fruition as Musk has announced that Tesla will not accept bitcoin as a form of payment.  

Tesla Takes Bitcoin

This announcement was made by Musk via Twitter where he stated that customers can now buy a Tesla with bitcoin while also explaining how the coins would be handled following the payment.

“Tesla is using only internal & open source software & operates Bitcoin nodes directly. Bitcoin paid to Tesla will be retained as Bitcoin, not converted to fiat currency,”

Finally, Musk announced that the option to pay via bitcoin would be made available to customers outside of the United States by the end of the year.

In response to this news, many Tesla customers have expressed excitement. Justin Sun, the CEO of Tron, saying that he would be getting one of the electric vehicles.

Not everyone was excited about the news, however, as some responses were incredulous about anyone spending their bitcoin on a car rather than HODLing. One Twitter user pointed out that Morgan Stanley will be offering bitcoin to its customers soon and thus, this is a bad time to spend or sell coins. 

Regardless of the responses, a Tesla car is now on the list of things that can be bought with bitcoin, which not only expands the digital asset’s usability but its visibility as well. More large companies might choose to follow in Tesla’s footsteps and accept bitcoin for their products as well, making it more widely accepted overall.