Tesla Keeps All Of Its $218 Million In Bitcoin

Tesla keeps all of its $218 million in Bitcoin. The latest report on electric carmaker Tesla shows us that the company left its holdings unchanged for the third quarter. On the contrary, in the second quarter, the company made a huge sale of its Bitcoin reserve. What does that mean?

Record second-quarter sales for Tesla

In February 2021, the megalomaniac boss of Tesla, Elon Musk, announced the purchase of $1.5 billion in Bitcoin (45,000 BTC) by his company. At that time, the flagship digital asset was on course for an unprecedented uptrend. Indeed, Bitcoin had reached an all-time high at $68,992 for a single token. 

The billionaire had said he wanted to “ diversify his cash flow ” in addition to giving his customers the possibility of paying for his cars in crypto. However, Musk had backtracked due to ' environmental reasons '.

In the second quarter of 2022, Tesla made a 180° turn by deciding to sell 75% of its Bitcoin holdings. The reasons given by the whimsical entrepreneur were those of the Covid-19 pandemic in China. For him, the situation was very uncertain, and “ So it was important for us to maximize our cash position”.

Nevertheless, Musk clarified that this should not be seen as any verdict on the star digital asset. This operation brought in no less than $936 million for the electric car company.

The firm had already sold almost 10% of its BTC digital assets during the first quarter of 2022. This represented $272 million at the time. Tesla then made a profit of 101 million dollars thanks to this maneuver.

A calm third quarter for Tesla

Today, according to the company's third-quarter report, Tesla has $218 million in digital assets. In this balance sheet published on October 19, no loss of value of its assets seems to have been reported. Based on current Bitcoin prices, it can be estimated that Elon Musk's company holds approximately 9,720 BTC .

New episode in the soap opera about the sale of Twitter, the billionaire has announced that he wants to buy the social network again. The hypothesis of the sale of digital assets to finance this purchase remains unlikely. Indeed, after a very harsh crypto winter, Bitcoin seems to be heading for a sunnier period. It would therefore be wise to wait for the asset to rebound before selling everything now.

Rumors suggest that if the billionaire takes over Twitter, he could set up an in-app crypto payment system thanks to the Lightning Network. Jack Mallers, CEO of the Strike app said:

"If I was Elon Musk and had a global audience on a global network (Twitter), what would stop me from allowing my users to pay with their phone at Starbucks? What's stopping me from transferring money via Twitter? Elon Musk has the opportunity to build payment systems traditionally not available to Twitter."

The Binance exchange said it supports the takeover by Elon Musk up to $500 million.

At the time of writing this article, the price of Bitcoin is relatively stable since it has experienced only a very slight drop of 0.05% in the last five days. Its current value is $19,586 . 

Nevertheless, many investors see the end of the crypto winter coming and predict a meteoric rise in the coming days. BTC seems to have reached a strong resistance threshold. There are, however, detractors who predict the digital asset will fall below $12,000.

Dogecoin as a means of payment

The electric car company Tesla has been giving its customers the option of paying with Dogecoin since last January. The Space X site, which offers derivative products such as clothing, also accepts payments with digital assets.

One of the products Tesla put on sale in September was a limited-edition whistle reminiscent of the Tesla Cybertruck car. This could only be purchased with DOGE, priced at 1,000 DOGE, or about $60 at the time. It's unclear exactly how many units went on sale, but it was reportedly sold out within hours.

Elon Musk does not rule out the possibility of one day paying for the Starlink subscription with the famous Coin meme. Indeed, he would have answered a surfer who asked him the question: “ maybe one day ”.