Business
Bitcoin is set to Soar Higher as Tesla customers can now buy their cars with Bitcoin.
Elon Musk has announced that Tesla customers can now buy their cars with bitcoin. This was stated in tweet on Elon Musk’s twitter handle. Mr Musk has been known to be a Bitcoin enthusiast having bought about $1.5b worth of Bitcoin few weeks ago.
But Bitcoin’s value rapidly moves up and down – meaning the cryptocurrency price of the car could change day to day.
Recall that Tesla had invested heavily in the digital currency, buying $1.5bn (£1.1bn) worth of Bitcoin.
And that apparent vote in confidence saw Bitcoin’s value shoot to a record high.
Wednesday’s announcement also led to a modest bump to the price of Bitcoin.
Mr Musk tweeted Tesla would be running its own internal software to handle Bitcoin payments, which “operates Bitcoin nodes directly”.
Nodes, in this sense, are the computers that process Bitcoin transactions.
And in an apparent bid to assuage fears of Bitcoin enthusiasts who want to see the ecosystem thrive, Mr Musk said: “Bitcoin paid to Tesla will be retained as Bitcoin, not converted to fiat [government-controlled] currency”
In the US, orders for new Tesla cars can now be secured with the equivalent of a $100 deposit in Bitcoin.
The facility would be rolled out to other countries in the coming months, Mr Musk said.
