Elon Musk, world's second wealthiest person, is curious about bitcoin

Elon Musk on Sunday asked about the possibility of converting "large transactions" of Tesla Inc's balance sheet into bitcoin, according to a Twitter exchange between Musk and a well-known advocate for the digital currency.

Michael Saylor, chief executive officer of MicroStrategy Inc, in a tweet to Musk, suggested that the billionaire Tesla founder and head, make the move.

"If you want to do your shareholders a $100 billion favor, convert the $TSLA balance sheet from USD to #BTC," Saylor wrote in his tweet. "Other firms on the S&P 500 would follow your lead & in time it would grow to become a $1 trillion favor."

"Are such large transactions even possible?" Musk replied to Saylor.

"Yes. I have purchased over $1.3 billion in #BTC in past months & would be happy to share my playbook with you offline....," Saylor tweeted.

Tesla and Musk could not be reached for comment.

"Every CEO faces the challenge of how to preserve & enhance shareholder value in the face of this year’s unprecedented monetary expansion," Saylor said in a message to Reuters.

"Bitcoin is the best solution to the store of value problem faced by every individual, investor, & corporation on earth," Saylor said.

Shares of Tesla rose to a record high on Friday in a frantic day of trading as investors geared up for the electric carmaker's much anticipated entrance into the benchmark S&P 500 index on Monday.

Bitcoin rose to a high of $24,299.75 on Sunday, after passing the $20,000 milestone for the first time last week, amid surging interest from larger investors. Bitcoin was last at $23,60.98 up 2.88%.