Thanks to Elon Musk, Bitcoin is doing better than ever. Again.
This time, Bitcoin’s record high of nearly $44,000 came after Tesla announced it would invest $1.5 billion in the cryptocurrency, as well as saying it would let customers pay for cars with Bitcoin. In a matter of hours, the price of Bitcoin shot up more than 10%, according to Coindesk.
“We expect to begin accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment for our products in the near future, subject to applicable laws and initially on a limited basis,” Tesla said in a securities filing Monday. The company updated its investment policy last month to invest in digital currency, gold bullion, and gold exchange-traded funds, according to Bloomberg.
The move came after a series of tweets from Musk about dogecoin. His tweets from last week include: “Dogecoin is the people’s crypto...No need to be a gigachad to own,” and “Who let the Doge out.” Musk also briefly changed his Twitter bio to “#bitcoin" last month, which sent the cryptocurrency up 14% to a two-week high.
Musk also discussed Bitcoin on the social networking app Clubhouse last week, saying, “I think Bitcoin is really on the verge of getting broad acceptance by sort of the conventional finance people.”
Memes and hashtags aside, Tesla’s investment in Bitcoin signals a shift as crypto becomes a more legitimate investment for major companies, both as an asset and payment method.
The finance world was quick to praise the move on Twitter. Investor Balaji S. Srinivasan wrote, “Tesla bought Bitcoin. Every company will buy Bitcoin.” Investor Anthony Pompliano echoed the sentiment, writing, “It is smart business for corporations to own Bitcoin.”
Former Andreessen Horowitz partner Benedict Evans summed up Musk’s social media and investment strategy when he tweeted, “Elon Musk is a bullshitter who delivers. This breaks a lot of people's pattern-matching, in both directions.”
