Tesla Sells 75% of its BTC; Price of the Coin Recovers Slightly

The price of Bitcoin slightly spiked last night after Tesla disclosed that it had sold Bitcoin in huge amounts. On June 20, Elon Musk’s Tesla revealed that it had sold 75% of its Bitcoin coin because it was concerned about “overall liquidity” due to COVID-19 lockdowns uncertainties in China. The Tesla team announced this statement in the company’s second quarterly meeting, yesterday.

Bitcoin price spiked to $23,879.03, last night, which is reportedly due to Tesla’s BTC sale announcement. However, at the moment, the price of Bitcoin declined and trades at $22,927.5, with a 3.5% dip in the past 24 hours.

While looking more into the BTC sale news, the financial summary of Tesla’s Q2 earnings report read that the team has converted around 75% of Bitcoin purchases into fiat currency, at the end of Q2. This amounts to BTC worth $936 million. Moreover, the 75% coin sale leaves the current BTC holdings of the company at $218 million.

Contextually, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that this BTC sell-off should not be taken as some verdict on the coin, instead, he added:

We sold a bunch of our Bitcoin as we were uncertain as to when the COVID lockdowns in China would alleviate. We are open to increasing our BTC holdings in the future. So this should not be taken as some verdict on Bitcoin and we have not sold any of our Dogecoin.

In June 2021, Elon Musk remarked that he might pump Bitcoin, but not dump it. “I definitely do not believe in getting the price high and selling … I would like to see bitcoin succeed,” said the Tesla Chief. However, it seems that this former statement is in contrast to the latest announcement of the company.