Can you buy a Tesla with bitcoin? How the payments might work
Tesla Inc expects to allow customers to pay for its electric vehicles with bitcoin soon, the automaker said on Monday (Feb 8), a move that could expand how the most popular cryptocurrency is used for real-world transactions.
Although bitcoin has become more of a household name in recent years, it is still mostly used as an investment product rather than a form of payment.
A handful of mainstream brands have allowed customers to make purchases with bitcoin through third-party processors, but Tesla suggested it might accept bitcoin directly as part of a broader plan to incorporate the cryptocurrency into its investment portfolio.
The company made the disclosures in a section of its quarterly securities filing that also detailed its purchase of US$1.5 billion worth of bitcoin. If customers buy Teslas with bitcoin, the company may or may not liquidate those payments right away - which some experts read as an indication that Tesla might hold on to at least some of the coins and not sell them automatically.
A Tesla representative did not immediately respond to a request for more details.
If Tesla were to accept bitcoin payments the way some other major companies have, customers would transfer bitcoins from their "digital wallets" to another entity that converts them into, say, dollars and sends the sum to Tesla.
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