Bitcoin price extends sell-off after Elon Musk implies Tesla may have sold BTC holdings
- Elon Musk continues to move the crypto markets after a recent tweet revealed that Tesla sold or may potentially sell its Bitcoin holdings.
- The billionaire entrepreneur has received plenty of criticism following his decision to suspend BTC as a form of payment for Tesla’s vehicles.
- Bitcoin price dropped by $4,000 in a matter of hours following the entrepreneur’s ambiguous remark.
Bitcoin price and altcoins suffered a major crash last week following Elon Musk’s announcement that Tesla would stop receiving payments in BTC. The billionaire entrepreneur has once again shook the markets as he implied in a recent tweet that the electric car company sold or may sell the rest of its crypto holdings.
Elon Musk sends Bitcoin price down to $44,000
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been a large proponent of cryptocurrencies, helping rally Bitcoin price and other digital currencies including Dogecoin in the past year.
In a Securities & Exchange Commission filing in February, the electric vehicle firm revealed that it had purchased $1.5 million in Bitcoin. However, the firm later on decided to sell part of its BTC holdings to prove the cryptocurrency’s liquidity.
In a recent Twitter exchange, Musk implied that Tesla sold or may sell the rest of its Bitcoin holdings, sending BTC price down by over 8% to around $44,000.
A Twitter user with the handle CryptoWhale said:
Bitcoiners are going to slap themselves next quarter when they find out Tesla dumped the rest of their holdings. With the amount of hate Elon Musk is getting, I wouldn’t blame him.
Musk responded with, “Indeed,” which was enough to shake investors’ confidence in the leading cryptocurrency.
It is worth noting that the potential sale of Bitcoin comes after Musk recently explained that the company has planned to hold rather than sell off its crypto holdings.
The electric car company announced last week that the firm would no longer accept Bitcoin as a form of payment, citing environmental concerns over “rapidly increasing the use of fossil fuels for mining.” The Tesla CEO stated that the firm has intended to use BTC for transactions as soon as mining transitions to be more sustainable.
Despite Musk reversing course three months after he pledged to take the pioneer cryptocurrency as payment, he has since favored Dogecoin. Pushing further for the meme-based digital currency, his aerospace company SpaceX has started to accept DOGE as payment to launch a new mission to the moon.
Author
Sarah Tran
Independent Analyst
Sarah has closely followed the growth of blockchain technology and its adoption since 2016.
