Tesla Buys $1.5B In Bitcoin, May Accept It As Payment For Products In The Near Future
Electric car manufacturer, Tesla has disclosed that it has acquired $1.5 billion in bitcoin cryptocurrency, adding it could in the near future accept the coin as payment for its luxury cars.
Tesla filed its annual financial report with US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday morning and revealed the new bitcoin investment.
The electric-car market leader disclosed that it will also “begin accepting bitcoin as a form of payment for our products in the near future”, Bloomberg reports.
As the news broke, the price of bitcoin instantly rose by around 7% to more than $40,000 per coin, breaking its all-time high.
The new development comes as good news to many Tesla customers and aspiring owners who have recently been calling on founder and CEO Elon Musk to accept bitcoin for vehicle purchases.
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Musk has been vocal about backing the cryptocurrency on Twitter, even adding #bitcoin to his profile recently.
He has also been backing another cryptocurrency, Dogecoin on Twitter over the past week, sending its value up just moments after his tweets.
Tesla selecting bitcoin as the cryptocurrency of its choice will help to further cement the blockchain as the world’s best known.
With the fact that it may accept bitcoin-denominated transactions in the future could help bitcoin retain both value, and exchange volume.
The company in the financial report partly stated;
In January 2021, we updated our investment policy to provide us with more flexibility to further diversify and maximize returns on our cash that is not required to maintain adequate operating liquidity. As part of the policy, we may invest a portion of such cash in certain specified alternative reserve assets.
Thereafter, we invested an aggregate $1.50 billion in bitcoin under this policy. Moreover, we expect to begin accepting bitcoin as a form of payment for our products in the near future, subject to applicable laws and initially on a limited basis, which we may or may not liquidate upon receipt.
Although Tesla noted that it may also accept bitcoin in the future as a form of payment for its cars, it noted that there is some regulatory uncertainty around that effort.
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The price of the cryptocurrency has been gradually increasing throughout 2021, as demand from both institutional and retail buyers has increased.
It still remains a volatile cryptocurrency, though, with the price dipping below $30,000 in January alone.
