MUMBAI: Tesla bought bitcoins worth $1.5 billion in January 2021 after the company updated its investment policy to invest in digital assets, a filing with the Securities Exchange Commission showed.
According to a Bloomberg report, the price of the digital asset jumped as much as 16% with prices nearing nearly $45,000 for the first time.
“We updated our investment policy to provide us with more flexibility to further diversify and maximize returns on our cash that is not required to maintain adequate operating liquidity,” the document filed by Tesla showed.
In another significant move, the company said that it will start accepting Bitcoin as payment for its product and services in the future.
“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, which we may or may not liquidate upon receipt,” the company said in its filing.
The development comes days after Tesla co-founder Elon Musk displayed a symbol of Bitcoin on social media. He has been recently tweeting memes of another alternative cryptocurrency Dogecoin.
Bitcoin rates have surged 35 per cent since the beginning of the year and recently crossed above the psychological resistance level of $40,000. The cryptocurrency has rallied over 800 per cent since the beginning of April as more institutional and retail investors bought the currency as hedge against inflation.
In India, the government aims to bring a bill in the Parliament to ban the use of private cryptocurrencies. The government plans to introduce a central bank digital currency created by the Reserve Bank of India.
The central bank recently said that an internal panel is working on the model for a digital currency to rival private cyrptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
