Tesla has converted about 75% of its bitcoins into fiat currency. The cryptocurrency sales left the electric car company in possession of $ 218 million worth of digital assets. “We are certainly open to increasing our bitcoin holdings in the future,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk said, adding: “WWe haven’t sold any of our dogecoins.
Tesla sold about 75% of its holdings in Bitcoin
Elon Musk’s electric car company Tesla released its second quarter earnings report Wednesday. The company wrote:
At the end of the second quarter, we converted about 75% of our bitcoin purchases into fiat currency. Conversions in the second quarter added $ 936 million in cash to our balance sheet.
Tesla’s second quarter balance sheet shows net digital assets of $ 218 million, down from $ 1.26 billion in the prior quarter. The company also said its second quarter operating income was impacted by the devaluation of bitcoin.
The electric car company’s financial statement shows revenue from digital asset sales of $ 936 million. The only other time Tesla’s financial statements showed sales of digital assets was in the first quarter of 2021. The sales proceeds amounted to $ 272 million at the time.
Tesla bought $ 1.5 billion worth of bitcoin in early 2021 and hasn’t bought any since. The electric car company never disclosed the number of BTC owns. However, Musk hinted in July last year that Tesla owned around 42,000 bitcoins.
The company also briefly agreed BTC for payments, but suspended it in May last year, citing environmental concerns. Last October, Tesla told the SEC that he could start accepting cryptocurrencies again. Musk later stated that Tesla will resume accepting bitcoin when there is “confirmation of a reasonable use (about 50%) of clean energy by miners with a positive future trend”. However, at the time of writing, Tesla has not resumed accepting BTC.
Elon Musk: Tesla hasn’t sold Dogecoin and is “certainly open to increasing our Bitcoin holdings in the future”
Musk explained why Tesla sold most of his BTC Wednesday in a phone call with analysts.
“It should be mentioned that the reason we sold a lot of our bitcoin holdings was that we were unsure when the Covid blockades in China would ease. So it was important for us to maximize our cash position, given the uncertainty of Covid lockdowns in China “, explained the Tesla boss, elaborating:
We are certainly open to increasing our bitcoin holdings in the future, so this shouldn’t be taken as a verdict on bitcoin. It’s just that we were concerned about the company’s overall liquidity given the Covid closures in China. And we haven’t sold any of our dogecoins.
Tesla never bought the cryptocurrency dogecoin meme for its balance sheet. However, the company started accepting DOGE for some products in January. Musk previously said he sees bitcoin as a store of value while dogecoin is better suited for payments.
In a February filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Tesla said, “We can increase or decrease our availability of digital assets at any time based on the needs of the business and our view of the market and environmental conditions. … believe in the long-term potential of digital assets both as an investment and as a liquid alternative to cash. “
Musk is currently engaged in a legal battle with Twitter Inc. He has offered to buy the social media platform for $ 44 billion, but officially terminated the deal on July 8. Twitter later filed a lawsuit against Musk to force him to finalize the deal. The trial is set for October.
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