Electric car manufacturer Tesla has invested $ 1.5 billion, equivalent to around SEK 13 billion, in the cryptocurrency. The announcement comes just two weeks after Teslad founder and CEO Elon Musk began airing his craze for bitcoin on Twitter.

Tesla will also in the near future accept that customers pay for cars and other products with bitcoin.

The news caused the value of bitcoin to rise, over ten percent, to a new record level. A bitcoin now costs $ 43,625, or about $ 367,000.

Other cryptocurrencies are lifting

Other cryptocurrencies such as etherum and XRP are also included in the rush, rising 5 and 4 per cent respectively.

Ten days ago, Elon Musk added the hashtag #bitcoin to his Twitter profile to delete it a few days later. Musk, with 46 million followers on Twitter, however, has continued to speak positively about cryptocurrencies via its social media platform.

Bitcoin’s value has risen by almost 50 percent so far this year after last year’s rise of 300 percent.