The electric-car maker said last monthit bought $US1.5 billion worth of bitcoin and would soon accept it as a form of payment for cars,in a large stride towards mainstream acceptance that sent bitcoin soaring to a record high of nearly $US62,000.
Bitcoin,the world’s biggest digital currency,rose more than 4 per cent after Musk’s tweet and was last up 3.5 per cent at $US56,178.
Musk said bitcoin paid to Tesla would not be converted into traditional currency,but he gave few other details on how the bitcoin payments would be processed. The company was using “internal&open source software”,he said.
Most mainstream companies such as AT&T and Microsoft that allow customers to pay with bitcoin typically use specialist payment processors that convert the cryptocurrency into,say,dollars and send the sum to the company.
“Tesla and other companies are showing that crypto is here to stay,and its mainstream adoption is only going to increase,” said Simon Peters,analyst at investment platform eToro.
Like other cryptocurrencies,bitcoin is still little used for commerce in major economies,hampered by its volatility and relatively costly and slow processing times.