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Twitter user RIZZO shared a screenshot of an article dated July 20, 2022, with the headline saying that Tesla offloaded 75% of its Bitcoin holdings. The user called Elon Musk "paper hands" for that.
RIZZO believes that Tesla now still holds about 10,000 BTC. In the comments thread, crypto fans began wondering if Tesla intends to buy more Bitcoin soon, or at least after the BTC halving that is to happen next year in April-May.
I wonder if he'll buy back in early 2025, just like last cycle...
— Andrew Throuvalas 🟠💊🔑⚡️ (@AThrouvalas) July 19, 2023
Elon Musk drives BTC to new high
In February 2021, Tesla, run by tech entrepreneur and eccentric billionaire Elon Musk, announced a purchase of Bitcoin with approximately $1.5 billion to put this crypto on the balance sheet.
This made the flagship crypto surge by over 25% to hit $48,000 — this was a new all-time high for Bitcoin back then. This was followed by Musk, in March, announcing that clients will be allowed to buy Tesla e-cars with BTC, by making a deposit of at least $100 in Bitcoin for U.S. buyers.
Two months later, however, Bitcoin went down when Elon Musk reversed his plan on selling cars for BTC over strong environmental concerns.
In the same year, in late October, the leading crypto soared to an all-time high of roughly $69,000. This level is still unbeaten.
In July last year, Tesla sold around 75% of its Bitcoin holdings; this caused the BTC price to drop by more than 50%.
As reported by U.Today earlier this year, Tesla had not sold any more BTC since July 2022 and now it holds around $184 million in Bitcoin.
Tesla continues to sell things for crypto
In early 2022, Tesla experimented with selling its merchandise for Dogecoin, the meme cryptocurrency favored by Musk. After this way of payment became popular, the company continued selling its merch for BTC.
Later that year, SpaceX followed suit, as both events made the DOGE price go up. In the fall of that year, Elon Musk launched his limited edition perfume, "Burnt Hair."
One of the options was to buy it with crypto via BitPay crypto payment processor — it works with at least a dozen coins, including Bitcoin, DOGE and another popular meme cryptocurrency, Shiba Inu.
Ten thousand bottles of perfume were sold very quickly.