Electric car maker Tesla has announced a new option to pay for buying vehicles. Its owner Elon Musk has said that Tesla will accept payments in Bitcoin. This means anyone can pay in Bitcoins to Telsa to buy a new car. This is, however, limited for US customers. Tesla said that it will soon expand the option to pay with Bitcoin in other countries. Currently, the value of one Bitcoin is USD 56,000. Those willing to buy an electric car from Tesla will have to pay less than one Bitcoin to buy an entry-level vehicle. The Standard Range Plus of Model 3 is Tesla’s entry-level vehicle. It has a starting price of USD 37,990. The Long Range variant starts at USD 46,990 and the top-of-the-line Performance at USD 54,990.
Musk said that his company is using only internal and open-source software. It operates Bitcoin nodes directly. Notably, Tesla has invested USD 1.5 billion in the popular cryptocurrency. He said that payments received in Bitcoin will be retained in their original form. The company said that it will not convert Bitcoin to fiat currency. The new mode of payment also appears on Tesla’s US website. It is providing an option of scanning a QR code to the buyers to make payment. Besides, users can simply copy and paste the Bitcoin wallet address to make payment for their purchases. Tesla, however, said that it will continue pricing its cars the US dollars.
Musk in recent times has been tweeting on cryptocurrencies more frequently. The total market value of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency has surpassed the USD 1 trillion mark. Tesla’s investment in Bitcoin contributed to the value of Bitcoin. Tesla is believed to have made a profit of USD 1 billion from its investment in Bitcoin. Meanwhile, Square has revealed that it invested USD 170 million in Bitcoin. Square is backed by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. It is a credit and payments company. Square purchased about 3,318 Bitcoins. The value of Bitcoin is likely to see a further surge with the recent investments.
