Key Takeaways
- Tesla just revealed it sold 75% of its Bitcoin holdings during the last quarter.
- The electric vehicle company stated the Bitcoin sale had provided it with $936 million in cash, but had still negatively affected profitability.
- Tesla originally bought $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin in early 2021 for an average price of roughly $31,000.
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Elon Musk’s Tesla indicated in its latest earnings report that it had sold the majority of its Bitcoin holdings sometime in the quarter, likely for a loss.
Only $218 million in Bitcoin Left
Tesla has sold most of its Bitcoin.
In its latest quarterly report Tesla revealed that it had converted “approximately 75%” of its Bitcoin holdings into fiat currency. As of June 30 the notorious electric vehicle company only had $218 million in digital assets, down from more than $1.2 billion in March.
The report stated that the Bitcoin sale had “added $936 million of cash” to the company’s balance sheet. While Tesla did not clarify whether it had sold Bitcoin at lower prices than it had originally bought, it noted Bitcoin had been an “impairment” that had negatively affected profitability.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk explained in a following earnings call that the company had sold “a bunch” of its Bitcoin due to liquidity concerns prompted by China’s Covid lockdowns. He stated that Tesla is “certainly open to increasing [its] Bitcoin holdings in the future,” and also added that no Dogecoin had been sold.
Musk originally announced his support for Bitcoin on January 29 2021 by including the name of the top cryptocurrency on his Twitter profile; a few days later Tesla revealed it had bought $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin and was now accepting Bitcoin payments.
Tesla’s Bitcoin acquisitions are thought to have been made at an average price of roughly $31,000; while we currently do not know the exact date the company sold its holdings, nor the exact number of coins sold, Bitcoin price descended from about $47,000 to $19,000 from March 31st to June 30th, making it likely the company suffered a significant loss.
Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this piece owned ETH and several other cryptocurrencies.