Tesla CEO Musk: Bitcoin is on the verge of being widely accepted by traditional finance

Tesla Inc’s billionaire CEO Elon Musk said this week he believes the surging cryptocurrency bitcoin is on the “verge” of entering traditional finance.

Musk, who revealed last month that he was willing to accept payments in bitcoin, made the comments this week during a public interview on the Clubhouse podcast channel, which also covered human missions to Mars and Musk's implantable brain-machine connection project Neuralink.

“At this point, I do think Bitcoin is a good thing,” Musk said in a crowded Clubhouse chat room, adding that he did not have as strong an opinion on other cryptocurrencies as he did on Bitcoin.

“I’m a Bitcoin supporter. I came late, but I’m a supporter. I think Bitcoin is on the verge of being widely accepted by traditional finance people.”

Musk's comments put him at odds with many global central bankers and regulators who have recently warned that Bitcoin is mainly used for illicit purposes and money laundering.

Musk said people have tried to get him involved in bitcoin trading in the past, dating back to 2013, when it was worth a fraction of what it is now - less than $100.

Since October, the price of Bitcoin has surged 200%, soaring to over $40,000 per Bitcoin before retreating slightly. The booming Bitcoin rally has been largely attributed to enthusiasm for cryptocurrencies and increased support from institutional investors such as payment giant PayPal - despite fears of a bubble.

Last week, Musk's tweets about Bitcoin and the real cryptocurrency Dogecoin boosted Dogecoin's price in the short term, giving a long-awaited hint to bullish retail traders who were fighting Wall Street hedge funds that had long been short GME shares on the WallStreetBets forum but were restricted from trading the company's shares .

"I have to be careful what I say, it moves the market," Musk said via his Clubhouse podcast channel , where he spoke on Twitter about the power of his nearly 45 million followers.

“The most interesting outcome is that … Dogecoin will become the currency of the Earth in the future. Sometimes I make jokes about Dogecoin, but they are jokes. Dogecoin was made as a joke to make fun of cryptocurrency, but fate is often ironic.”

Last week, Musk changed his Twitter signature to "#bitcoin" and commented on Bitcoin : "In retrospect, this was inevitable." Last week, the price of Bitcoin suddenly surged 20% last week after falling below $30,00 per Bitcoin.

Since Musk’s tweet, the price of Bitcoin has retreated, almost erasing any short-lived gains.

While Musk’s latest Clubhouse comments have so far failed to drive a rally in Bitcoin prices, expectations were high ahead of the interview that he may have a Tesla-related Bitcoin announcement ready.

When Musk was asked in December about the possibility of converting billions of dollars of Tesla’s U.S. dollar assets into Bitcoin, his reply on Twitter fueled speculation that his electric car company could add Bitcoin as an asset to its balance sheet.