Elon Musk says Tesla now accepts the cryptocurrency as payment

Elon Musk said a Tesla car can now be purchased using the world’s most popular cryptocurrency – Bitcoin.

Musk said in a tweet early Wednesday the EV-maker has added bitcoin as a payment option. The choice is currently available to customers in the US, but will be made available elsewhere later this year, Musk said.

“Tesla is using only internal & open source software & operates Bitcoin nodes directly,” he said. “Bitcoin paid to Tesla will be retained as Bitcoin, not converted to fiat currency.”

Nodes are computers that validate bitcoin transactions.

Musk published his tweet soon after Twitter users noticed the updated bitcoin support for all models of Tesla’s cars across online US stores. “Elon,” “Tesla,” and “#Bitcoin,” quickly became trending hashtags on the social media platform.

Tesla is using only internal & open source software & operates Bitcoin nodes directly.

Bitcoin paid to Tesla will be retained as Bitcoin, not converted to fiat currency.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 24, 2021