Tesla customers can now purchase electric vehicles using bitcoin, according to Elon Musk, the company’s CEO.
This is a huge step forward for bitcoin‘s usage in commerce.
“You can now buy a Tesla with bitcoin,” Elon Musk said on Twitter, The option will be available outside of the US later this year, according to the company.
Last month, the electric-car producer said that it had purchased $1.5 billion in bitcoin and would soon accept it as a form of payment for automobiles, marking a significant step toward widespread acceptance that pushed bitcoin to a new high of about $62,000.
After Musk’s tweet, Bitcoin, the world’s most valuable digital currency, jumped more than 4% to US$56,429 at the time of posting.
Musk stated that bitcoin payments to Tesla would not be converted into traditional currency, but he provided some further information about how the payments would be handled. The company was using “internal & open source software,” he said.
Most major companies that accept bitcoin payments, such as AT&T Inc and Microsoft Corp, rely on specialized payment processors to convert bitcoin into, dollars and transmit the money to the company.
Because of its volatility and relatively expensive and slow processing periods, bitcoin, like other cryptocurrencies, is currently infrequently used for commerce in wealthy nations.
Musk, who frequently makes comments about cryptocurrencies on Twitter, criticized conventional money last month, saying that “has a negative real interest, only a fool wouldn’t look elsewhere.”
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