The price of bitcoin spiked on Wednesday morning after Elon Musk said the cryptocurrency could now be used to buy Tesla (TSLA) electric vehicles.

"You can now buy a Tesla with Bitcoin," Musk wrote on Twitter shortly after 7am UK time on Wednesday.

Billionaire Musk said bitcoin would be accepted in the United States and "will be retained as Bitcoin, not converted to fiat currency."

Bitcoin was up 3% against the dollar to $55,444.21 (BTC-USD) shortly after the tweet.

 

Tesla announced last month it had invested $1.5bn (£1bn) into bitcoin, the world's biggest cryptocurrency. The company said at the time it was hoping to accept payment in bitcoins in the near future. The announcement sent the price of bitcoin surging. The investment has since drawn scrutiny over its environmental impact.

READ MORE: Tesla's bitcoin investment has carbon footprint of 1.8 million cars

The price surge has helped bitcoin repeatedly reach new all-time highs in recent months.

 

Musk — who recently changed his official title at Tesla to "technoking" — has long been an advocate of digital currencies. As well as bitcoin, he has provided price support to meme crypto doge coin this year by tweeting about it.

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