(REUTERS): Elon Musk’s Tesla today (Monday) said it had bought about $1.5 billion of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin and expected to begin accepting it as payment in future, prompting a more than a 10% jump in the electronic currency.
Bitcoin jumped as much as 15% after Tesla made the disclosure in a regulatory filing, with prices exceeding $44,000 for the first time. Analysts said the move by one of the world’s best-known companies was liable to prove a game changer for bitcoin.
It comes days after Mr Musk added “#bitcoin” to his Twitter profile page, which drove up the price. He removed it days later, but has continued talking up Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, including Dogecoin, which jumped 50% after his endorsement.
Musk said a week ago that bitcoin was “on the verge” of being more widely accepted among investors and in December asked if it was possible to do large transactions in the currency.
“I think we will see an acceleration of companies looking to allocate to Bitcoin now that Tesla has made the first move,” said Eric Turner, vice president of market intelligence at cryptocurrency research and data firm Messari.
He further said, “One of the largest companies in the world now owns Bitcoin and by extension, every investor that owns Tesla (or even just an S&P 500 fund) has exposure to it as well.”
In a stock market filing, Tesla said it has updated its investment policy in January and now wanted to invest in “reserve assets” such as digital currencies, gold bullion or gold exchange-traded funds.
It said it had already bought $1.5 million of Bitcoin and could “acquire and hold digital assets” in the future. “Moreover, we expect to begin accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment for our products in the near future,” it added.
Bitcoin, which has set new record highs in recent months, has also drawn support from major financial institutions this year. The world’s biggest money manager Blackrock recently changed a handful of investment mandates to allow some of its funds to invest in the currency.
