Elon Musk does not appear to be holding Tesla’s bitcoin amid a crypto winter. The company’s Q2 financial report announced that it had sold 75 percent of its Bitcoin holdings this quarter. The coins were sold for $963 million by the firm. Tesla stated that the remaining “digital assets” is worth $218 million.
Early last year, the company revealed that it had purchased $1.5 billion in Bitcoin with its balance sheet assets and would soon accept Bitcoin as payment for its automobiles.
The declaration drove the crypto markets into a state of panic, driving up the values of several cryptocurrencies and establishing Musk as the de facto crypto leader. Later, when he abruptly declared that they would no longer take cryptocurrency payments, much of their goodwill with the community was blown.
The company’s selloff follows a significant drop in the price of cryptocurrencies across the board, including Bitcoin and Dogecoin, which Musk has personally championed on social media and in his role as Tesla CEO.
The company’s leadership stated on an earnings call that the sale was motivated by a desire to optimise cash balances during the uncertainty of China’s COVID lockdowns.
“We are certainly open to increasing bitcoin holdings in future. So this should not be taken as some verdict on Bitcoin. It’s just that we were concerned about overall liquidity for the company given COVID shutdowns in China,” Tesla CFO Zachary Kirkhorn said.
The company’s Q2 financial report, which exceeded estimates with a profit of $2.26 billion, had little impact on the stock price in after-hours of trading.