Technoking Elon Musk announced on Twitter that Tesla has started to accept bitcoin as payment option for its products. The option to pay in bitcoin is now appearing on the company’s website alongside the traditional option to pay by card.
Musk followed up by giving some details about how Tesla will manage the payment through cryptocurrency. He said that the car manufacturer is using only internal & open-source software to operate Bitcoin nodes (computers that validate crypto transactions) directly.
It means that the company would retain the paid Bitcoin without converting it into fiat currency. This process is called HODL in cryptocurrency language, which usually stands for ‘Hold On for Dear Life’.
Tesla Allows Bitcoin as Payment And Surges Its Price Even More
After Musk’s tweet, the Bitcoin price rose up by approximately 5% to 56,360 USD. It is seen at least an 800% increase since the last year. It is true that this cryptocurrency’s price has been seesawing a lot as compared to other coins. During the COVID-19 pandemic, where the global economy is falling like dominos, bitcoin price seems to keep on surging. With the inclusion of bitcoin as payment option for Tesla products, it is expected to rise even more.
Elon Musk has been showing a knack for increasing the crypto market through various tweets. He advocated a meme-based cryptocurrency, DOGECOIN, and pushed it through the roof from beneath the floor. However, bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that Musk is allowing to be used on the payment portal.
Investment in Digital Assets
He is not only encouraging the public to use crypto but HODLing the digital coins himself. According to the reports, Tesla invested $1.5 billion in the digital asset last month and promised to accept bitcoin as payment for its products. Reports also mentioned that Tesla used a popular crypto exchange platform, Coinbase to purchase bitcoin.
Thanks to the increase in bitcoin price, Tesla has profited more than 1 billion USD from its investment. Following the development, shares of Tesla increased by 2% in the pre-market trading on 24th March.
Terms and Conditions of Payment
As of now, Tesla has only allowed bitcoin as payment for cars in the US. Musk followed up with another tweet to ensure that this facility will soon arrive outside the Americas as well.
Moreover, any other form of cryptocurrency would result in loss of funds for the users as Tesla’s payment system will not receive the payment. In order to pay, the users simply need to scan the QR code (provided in the payment portal) or copy/paste their bitcoin wallet address to process the transaction.
According to the terms and conditions of Tesla’s bitcoin payment system, the actual price for cars will remain priced in the US Dollar. As an example, the company estimated that 100 USD deposit by the users would be equal to 0.00183659 BTC.
