Britta Pedersen-Pool / KTS Design / Science Photo Library / Getty Images
Bitcoin rose 5% after Elon Musk said a Tesla car can now be purchased using the world’s most popular cryptocurrency.
Technoking said in a tweet on Wednesday, the EV maker added bitcoin as a payment option. The choice is currently available to customers in the United States, but will be available elsewhere later this year, said Musk.
“Tesla is using only internal and open source software and operates Bitcoin nodes directly,” he said. “The Bitcoin paid to Tesla will be retained as Bitcoin, not converted to fiat currency.”
Nodes are computers that validate bitcoin transactions.
@ elonmusk / Twitter
Musk published his tweet shortly after Twitter users noticed updated bitcoin support for all Tesla car models in the United States online stores. “Elon”, “Tesla” and “#Bitcoin” quickly became popular hashtags on the social media platform.
The price of bitcoin rose 4.7% to $ 56,360 around 4:20 am ET. It is an increase of 90% in the accumulated for the year and more than 800% in the last 12 months.
Tesla
Bitcoin payment details on the Tesla website have been directed to a wallet address on BTC.com, according to The Block.
The automaker said last month that it had invested $ 1.5 billion in the digital asset and said it would soon begin accepting it as payment for its products. Tesla reportedly used the Coinbase crypto exchange to make its purchase.
Tesla’s shares were up about 2% in Wednesday’s pre-market.