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Is Elon Musk Selling Bitcoin? Tesla Transfers All $760M of Its BTC to Unknown Wallets.
On-chain data shows wallets associated with Elon Musk's electric car company have been emptied.
- Wallets associated with Elon Musk's Tesla have moved $760 million worth of bitcoin (BTC).
- The funds were moved to unknown wallets.
- Tesla is the fourth-biggest bitcoin holder among public companies.
Elon Musk's Tesla, one of the biggest corporate owners of bitcoin (BTC), transferred nearly all $760 million of the cryptocurrency it owns to unknown wallets, raising the possibility the carmaker is selling.
Wallets associated with the electric car manufacturer on Tuesday moved more than 11,500 bitcoin to wallets whose ownership is unknown, according to crypto data firm Arkham Intelligence. The Tesla wallets only retain about $6.65 worth of BTC – essentially nothing.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Tesla is the fourth-biggest holder of bitcoin among publicly traded U.S. companies, per BitcoinTreasuries data. Only software company MicroStrategy and bitcoin mining firms MARA Holdings and Riot Platforms have larger stockpiles.
Tesla bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin in February 2021, and at some point owned as much as $2.5 billion worth, according to Arkham data. However, the firm sold 75% of its holdings in early 2022 at a loss. When Arkham Intelligence added the car maker's bitcoin wallet tracking feature to its dashboard in March, it held about 11,509 bitcoin, worth roughly $770 million.
Musk had also previously announced, back when Tesla first acquired its stash, that the company would soon accept bitcoin payments, but the plans were dropped shortly after due to environmental concerns.
While some of Musk's companies – including Tesla and SpaceX – hold bitcoin on their balance sheets, it is unclear how much the X (formerly Twitter) owner believes in the cryptocurrency himself. In an interview broadcast on YouTube in July, Musk said that he thinks "there's some merit in bitcoin, and maybe some other crypto," but that his soft spot was for dogecoin (DOGE).
UPDATE (Oct. 15, 2024, 22:30 UTC): Adds more details on Tesla's bitcoin journey.
CORRECTION (Oct. 15, 2024, 22:30 UTC): Fixes name of MARA Holdings.
Tom Carreras
Tom writes about markets, bitcoin mining and crypto adoption in Latin America. He has a bachelor's degree in English literature from McGill University, and can usually be found in Costa Rica. He holds BTC above CoinDesk's disclosure threshold of $1,000.
Helene Braun
Helene is a New York-based news reporter at CoinDesk, covering news about Wall Street, the rise of the spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and updates on crypto exchanges. She is also the co-host of CoinDesk's Markets Daily show on Spotify and Youtube. Helene is a recent graduate of New York University's business and economic reporting program and has appeared on CBS News, YahooFinance and Nasdaq TradeTalks. She holds BTC and ETH.
