{"id":478039,"date":"2021-03-24T11:06:18","date_gmt":"2021-03-24T09:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=478039"},"modified":"2021-03-24T11:06:18","modified_gmt":"2021-03-24T09:06:18","slug":"tesla-starts-accepting-bitcoin-as-payment-for-cars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/motoring\/478039\/tesla-starts-accepting-bitcoin-as-payment-for-cars\/","title":{"rendered":"Tesla starts accepting Bitcoin as payment for cars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Having stunned the market with its audacious bet on Bitcoin earlier this year, Tesla Inc will now start accepting the world\u2019s largest electronic currency as payment for its electric cars.<\/p>\n<p>Chief executive officer Elon Musk on Wednesday tweeted that \u201cyou can now buy a Tesla with Bitcoin\u201d and that paying by Bitcoin will also be available to customers outside the US later this year.<\/p>\n<p>He added that Tesla will only use internal and open-source software and that any Bitcoin paid to the company will be retained as Bitcoin and not converted to a fiat currency.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">You can now buy a Tesla with Bitcoin<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1374617643446063105?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 24, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>California-based Tesla disclosed its $1.5 billion investment in Bitcoin in February and signaled its intent to begin accepting the cryptocurrency as a form of payment at the time, sending prices to a record. The world\u2019s leading EV maker made the Bitcoin bet after updating its investment policy in January to allow it to buy digital assets.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to lending increased legitimacy to electronic currencies, Musk\u2019s embrace of Bitcoin fits his maverick image. The billionaire has often tweeted about cryptocurrency-related topics and recently called Bitcoin \u201ca good thing\u201d in an interview. Dogecoin, the once tongue-in-cheek digital currency, also soared to records in February after Musk, rapper Snoop Dogg and Kiss bassist Gene Simmons tweeted about it.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/469324\/musk-defends-tesla-bitcoin-move-says-token-less-dumb-than-cash\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Musk defends Tesla Bitcoin move, says token less dumb than cash<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Having stunned the market with its audacious bet on Bitcoin earlier this year, Tesla Inc will now start accepting the world\u2019s largest electronic currency as payment for its electric cars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":290408,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11119],"tags":[5537,26,15861],"class_list":["post-478039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motoring","tag-bitcoin","tag-headline","tag-tesla-inc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478039"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":478077,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478039\/revisions\/478077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}