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Elon Musk Tweet Sends Bitcoin Higher by more than 5%

Elon-Musk-Tweet-Sends-Bitcoin-Higher-by-more-than-5%

Created by TradeOr

3rd Party Analysis 24 Mar 2021

The Elon Musk Effect

Elon Musk, the billionaire engineer and CEO of Tesla, this morning tweeted that people can now buy a Tesla with bitcoin. “You can now buy a Tesla with Bitcoin” the tweet simply said. Another one came in shortly, which announced that “Bitcoin paid to Tesla will be retained as Bitcoin, not converted to fiat currency.” For people outside the US, purchasing a Tesla with bitcoin will be available “later this year”, the Tesla CEO informed.

The billionaire executive said that the company is using “only internal and open-source software and operates Bitcoin nodes directly.” Nodes, in the Bitcoin peer-to-peer network, are computers that are used to verify transactions, thus making sure that every single transaction is registered and payments will not be spent twice.

BTC/USD is Given a Boost

As soon as the tweet went online, bitcoin received a boost which sent the price higher by nearly 2% in less than an hour following the news. Bitcoin is currently trading higher by almost 6% on the day, going from an intraday low of $53,500 to a session high of $56,700.

 

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Tesla’s Bitcoin Support Page

The EV maker revealed last month it had invested $1.5bn into bitcoin and will now hold it in its balance sheet without it being converted into a sovereign currency. Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency accepted by Tesla and the feature of paying with bitcoin is now live for US customers. The website has dedicated a special page for more information on using bitcoin as means of payment. The page mentions that the feature will be made available for customers outside the United States. The company does not indicate which new markets will be able to accept bitcoin as payment. The page also says that as bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency accepted, payment in any other cryptocurrency will “likely result in a loss of funds”.