{"id":112096,"date":"2021-02-10T18:07:19","date_gmt":"2021-02-10T18:07:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/precoinnews.com\/?p=112096"},"modified":"2021-02-10T18:07:19","modified_gmt":"2021-02-10T18:07:19","slug":"a-tesla-for-a-bitcoin-musk-drives-price-to-moon-with-1-5-billion-purchase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/precoinnews.com\/markets\/a-tesla-for-a-bitcoin-musk-drives-price-to-moon-with-1-5-billion-purchase\/","title":{"rendered":"A Tesla for a bitcoin: Musk drives price to moon with $1.5 billion purchase"},"content":{"rendered":"
(Reuters) – Bitcoin took another large stride toward mainstream acceptance on Monday after billionaire Elon Musk\u2019s electric vehicle company Tesla Inc revealed it had bought $1.5 billion of the cryptocurrency and would soon accept it as a form of payment for cars – sending the cryptocurrency shooting higher.<\/p>\n
The announcements, buried deep in Tesla\u2019s 2020 annual report, drove a 13% surge in the world\u2019s most widely-held cryptocurrency to over $43,000. At current prices, 0.88 bitcoins would be enough to buy an entry-level Tesla Model 3.<\/p>\n
Investors anticipated other companies will soon join a list of firms that invest in or hold bitcoin including BlackRock Inc, the world\u2019s largest asset manager, and payments companies Square and PayPal.<\/p>\n
Musk has upended Wall Street over the last year and briefly became the world\u2019s richest person as shares of Tesla surged nearly 500% to become the fifth most-valuable U.S. company, leaving other companies and investors eager to follow in his wake.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf any lesser mortals had made the decision to put part of their balance sheet in Bitcoin, I don\u2019t think it would have been taken seriously,\u201d said Thomas Hayes, managing member at Great Hill Capital LLC in New York. \u201cBut when the richest man in the world does it, everyone has to take a second look.\u201d<\/p>\n
The news sparked heavy trading in cryptocurrencies and caused exchanges like Coinbase, Gemini, Binance to experience technical issues, according to Coindesk here.<\/p>\n
It also generated discussion on Reddit. While discussions of cryptocurrencies are banned on the WallStreetBets community that fueled the GameStop Corp trading frenzy, users in other subreddits posted \u201cto the moon,\u201d expecting more companies to follow suit after Tesla.<\/p>\n
Some report exchanges including Binance and Kraken were having issues trading, while other also raised the question of whether Musk has been pumping the price of bitcoin while making a major investment in the cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n
A well-known supporter of cryptocurrencies, Musk has weighed in regularly on the past month\u2019s frenzy in retail investment, also driving up prices of the meme-based digital currency dogecoin and shares of U.S. video game chain GameStop.<\/p>\n
Related Coverage<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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