Do you want to buy your next car with bitcoin? How about your next cup of coffee?
Elon Musk, a longtime proponent of bitcoin, will be the customers of Tesla Inc. soon give the opportunity to purchase the company’s electric vehicles using the digital currency. The news – along with Tesla’s move to acquire $ 1.5 billion worth of cryptocurrency for its corporate coffers – pushed the price of bitcoin up 25% from Sunday to a new intraday record of $ 48,226 on Tuesday.
For bitcoin bulls, the announcement was the last sign of validation for the fast-growing digital currency.
Despite the rise of investors, bitcoin has been slow to emerge as a means of payment. It was originally created in 2008 to work as an electronic version of cash, allowing two people around the world to exchange value digitally as if they were exchanging physical cash.
In practice it has not worked that way. The cost of using bitcoin and its volatility has made normal, day-to-day transactions impractical. That probably won’t change if Tesla accepts the currency.