Tesla can be bought with Bitcoin now in US, says Elon Musk
Tesla now accepts bitcoin as payment for its cars in the US, CEO Elon Musk announced on Twitter. The option to pay using the cryptocurrency now appears on the company’s US website, where it’s available alongside the traditional card payment option. Musk said that the option to pay with bitcoin will be available to other countries “later this year.”
Musk offered some details on how Tesla is handling cryptocurrency. “Tesla is using only internal & open source software & operates Bitcoin nodes directly,” he said in a follow-up tweet, “Bitcoin paid to Tesla will be retained as Bitcoin, not converted to fiat currency.”
Pay by Bitcoin capability available outside US later this year
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 24, 2021
Tesla lays out how the bitcoin payment process works in an FAQ on its site, where it notes that users will have the option of scanning a QR code or copying and pasting its bitcoin wallet address to initiate the payment. It adds that trying to send any other form of cryptocurrency to its wallet means it “will not receive the transaction and it will likely result in a loss of funds for you.”
Tesla’s terms and conditions also caution that customers need to be careful when inputting both the bitcoin address and amount to be paid. Customers are also responsible for directly paying all bitcoin transaction fees associated with their purchase.
Tesla said it had also invested a total of $1.5 billion in cryptocurrency. The news sent the price of bitcoin up to over $43,000, an all-time high at the time.
