It’s been a year since Elon Musk’s electric car company Tesla sold 75% of its Bitcoin stash. However, Tesla remains one of the largest corporate holders of Bitcoin. The company’s BTC holdings remain unchanged for the straight quarter in Q2 2023.
Tesla’s Diamond Hands
In its latest earnings report released Wednesday, Tesla revealed it had neither sold nor bought any Bitcoin in the second quarter of 2023.
The value of its Bitcoin cache at the end of the quarter stood at $184 million, the same as it has been for the past three quarters. The valuation of the stockpile remained flat even as BTC rose to about $30,500 at the end of Q2 from $27,900 three months earlier, as existing accounting laws don’t permit such gains to be booked.
Tesla had not sold any more Bitcoin since July last year when it infamously offloaded $936 million worth of BTC, with Musk pointing to uncertainty surrounding lockdowns in China and the need to maximize the company’s cash to justify the sale.
The sell-off in July 2022 left the electric car manufacturer with approximately 10,725 Bitcoins on its balance sheet. Despite all the turmoil and uncertainty in the markets, Tesla has continued to hold on to its remaining BTC, leaving crypto fans wondering whether the Musk-helmed company plans to buy more bitcoin soon.
Tesla And Bitcoin
In February 2021, Tesla invested an astounding $1.5 billion in Bitcoin, making it one of the biggest corporate holders of the premier crypto — second only to Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy. At the time, Bitcoin traded at around $45,000 per coin, and Tesla had also started accepting Bitcoin payments. By November of the same year, Bitcoin posted its lifetime high of $69,044.
However, the love affair between Tesla and Bitcoin ended in May 2021 after the company suspended BTC as a payment option, with Musk citing concerns “about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for bitcoin mining and transactions.”
This year, Bitcoin has noticeably outperformed most traditional stocks and bonds and has recouped the losses incurred from the cryptocurrency contagions induced by FTX and Terra-Luna catastrophe.
Besides Bitcoin, Tesla is also believed to hold Dogecoin, as it accepts the canine-themed crypto as payment for merchandise, and Musk is a self-avowed evangelist.
