Tesla Transfers $760 Million in Bitcoin, Sparking Speculation of a Sale

Elon Musk’s Tesla has moved almost all of its estimated $760 million worth of Bitcoin holdings to unidentified wallets. It’s unclear from this abrupt action if the maker of electric vehicles intends to sell its bitcoin holdings.

According to information obtained by Arkham Intelligence on Tuesday, Tesla transferred more than 11,500 Bitcoin from its wallets to addresses that were not publicly owned. Following the transfer, Tesla has only around $6.65 worth of residual Bitcoin, which is essentially inconsequential.

As it stands, Tesla is the fourth-largest Bitcoin holder among publicly traded U.S. companies. Only MicroStrategy, along with bitcoin mining firms MARA Holdings and Riot Platforms, possesses larger quantities of Bitcoin. Tesla initially invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin back in February 2021 and, at one point, its holdings soared to a value of around $2.5 billion. However, in early 2022, the company sold off 75% of its Bitcoin assets at a loss, according to Arkham’s data. When Arkham launched its Bitcoin wallet tracking feature in March, Tesla was reported to hold approximately 11,509 Bitcoin, worth around $770 million.

Past Plans and Current Beliefs

At first, Musk declared that Tesla would take Bitcoin as payment. However, because to environmental concerns surrounding Bitcoin mining, these plans were swiftly shelved.

It’s unclear how much faith Musk has in Bitcoin personally, even though his business endeavors—Telsa and SpaceX, for example—hold the cryptocurrency. While Musk conceded that “there’s some merit in bitcoin, and maybe some other crypto,” he specifically mentioned dogecoin (DOGE) in a July YouTube interview.