During the announcement of the company's financial results for the second quarter of the year, the well-known electric car manufacturer revealed that it sold 75% of all the bitcoin it had at its disposal, with the sale bringing the company $963 million. Tesla further stated that the value of its remaining "digital assets" is $218 million.
In February of last year, the company created a sensation by announcing that it was buying $1.5 billion worth of cryptocurrency and that it would soon accept bitcoin as payment for its vehicles. This announcement set the cryptocurrency market into a frenzy driving the prices of many cryptocurrencies to rise and establishing Musk as the de facto leader of cryptocurrencies. But the momentum changed very quickly after 2 months later Musk suddenly announced that Tesla would abandon plans to accept bitcoin payments due to its high environmental footprint.
Tesla's sale of Bitcoin comes after a sharp and large drop in the prices of cryptocurrencies, including both Bitcoin and Dogecoin, which Musk has personally supported through his Twitter posts.
The reason for the sale of bitcoin was according to Zachary Lirhorn, CFO of Tesla, the desire to maximize the liquidity available to the company, following the uncertainty caused by the ongoing lockdowns in China due to the pandemic. Lirnhorn further adds that "we are definitely open to increasing our bitcoin participation in the future. Therefore, this should not be taken as any opinion of our own on this particular cryptocurrency."
