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Technoking of Tesla Elon Musk today announced that customers can purchase Tesla vehicles with Bitcoin as payment.

In a tweet, Musk added:

“Tesla is using only internal and open-source software and operates Bitcoin nodes directly. Bitcoin paid to Tesla will be retained as Bitcoin, not converted to fiat currency. Pay by Bitcoin capability [will be] available outside the US later this year.”

In February 2021, Tesla had opened the possibility of accepting Bitcoins as payments for its products and bought $1.5 billion worth of the cryptocurrency. In its filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the electric vehicle giant said Bitcoin would provide more flexibility to further diversify and maximise the returns on its products. 

On February 8, after Tesla announced this development, Bitcoin’s value jumped by 14 percent to as high as $44,000, and Ethereum jumped seven percent.

According to reports, during his interaction on the social media chat site Clubhouse, Elon said, “I do, at this point, think Bitcoin is a good thing, and I am a supporter of Bitcoin.”

Earlier this month, in a regulatory filing to the US SEC, Tesla said that its Founder and CEO Elon Musk will now be known as the Technoking of Tesla. The filing also added that Zach Kirkhorn will bear the title of ‘Master of Coin’ — a position made popular by the fantasy series Game of Thrones.

For a few months now, Musk has been turning heads with his increasing interest in cryptocurrency. The Shiba Inu-themed cryptocurrency, Dogecoin, also gained special interest from the SpaceX founder.

Musk shared a series of tweets, promoting Dogecoin, which initially began as a cryptocurrency joke. Musk had also added the hashtag #bitcoin to his Twitter bio for a brief period, which was instrumental in briefly pushing the price of the cryptocurrency to nearly 20 percent.