You Can Now Buy a Tesla With Bitcoin

After hinting at it in February, Tesla has now added Bitcoin as a payment option to its online store.

When the firm revealed early last month that it had purchased $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin to provide "more flexibility to further diversify and maximize returns on our cash," it added that it was looking into allowing customers to buy its cars using bitcoin down the line, in line with local regulations.

The new payment option currently appears to only be available in U.S. stores, although not all U.S. store users can select Bitcoin as their payment method. A possible reason might be that Tesla's website tracks the user's location and either shows or hides the feature based on that.

The new Bitcoin payment option in the Tesla shop. Source: Tesla.com

Following the discovery by a number of Twitter users, Tesla chief Elon Musk took to Twitter as well, Tweeting, "You can now buy a Tesla with Bitcoin."

Musk further explained that Tesla uses "only internal & open source software & operates Bitcoin nodes directly."

Tesla plans to hold the bitcoin it receives and not convert it to fiat currency.

Elon Musk declared himself a "supporter of Bitcoin" last month, following years of apparent indecisiveness with regards to the asset.

UPDATE: Wed March 24th, 7:19 a.m. UTC: Added details on Elon Musk's Tweets.