Elon Musk’s Tesla dumps 75% of Bitcoin holdings as profit plunges

At a time when the crypto market is going through turbulent times, electric vehicle giant Tesla Inc., in its earnings report, says it has sold 75% of its Bitcoin holdings in the second quarter of 2022. This led to a slide in Bitcoin prices on Thursday after the world's largest crypto by market cap surged around 7.5% to $23,526 on Wednesday. Amid the news, Bitcoin is currently trading at $22,903.48, down 2.37% in the past 24 hours, while its market cap stands at $437.76 billion, according to the crypto exchange CoinDesk data.

"As of the end of Q2, we have converted approximately 75% of our Bitcoin purchases into fiat currency. Conversions in Q2 added $936 million of cash to our balance sheet," says Tesla in its Q2 earnings report.

Tesla seems to have lost around $150 million on its investment in the world's biggest cryptocurrency after it created waves with its $1.5 billion investment in the highly volatile digital currency in February 2021. The company's "digital assets" as of June 30, 2022, stood at just $218 million.

During the company's conference call, Tesla boss Elon Musk says the decision to sell Bitcoin was taken to boost liquidity amid continuous lockdowns in China, and that the company has not sold its holdings in other cryptos like Dogecoin. He also said investors should not get influenced by Tesla's decision on Bitcoin as the company is open to enhancing its holding in the crypto in future.

Musk has often been criticised for influencing the prices of some select cryptos like Bitcoin and meme coins like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu. This led to a lot of people, who follow him on social media and otherwise, pumping money into cryptos like these. Before the global sell-off scenario, the Bitcoin price had risen to its all-time high of $66,3950 on November 10, 2021.

At the time when Musk's company poured in money in Bitcoin, its price was hovering around $44,200. Amid the global sell-offs across a majority of asset classes, Bitcoin's current price kept on declining and touched the one-year low of $18,958.20 on June 19, 2022.

On the company front, Tesla failed to impress shareholders. Its Q2 profit also fell 32% to $2.26 billion from the first quarter of 2022 when it had recorded a $3.3 billion net profit. Tesla's revenue in the said quarter also declined to $16.9 billion from $18.8 billion in the first quarter of 2022. On a YoY basis, however, the revenue rose 42%. Overall, the company sold 2.54 lakh vehicles during Q2, around 18% down from the previous quarter.

Thanks to its selling of the Bitcoin holdings, Tesla says its quarter-end cash, cash equivalents and short-term marketable securities increased sequentially by $902 million to $18.9 billion in Q2, driven mainly by the free cash flow of $621 million, partially offset by debt repayments of $402 million.

Like other major companies, Tesla has also been the victim of global supply chain issues that erupted amid the geo-political war and Covid-related curbs in China. After shutting downs its Shanghai Gigafactory in Shanghai, China, during the first quarter, this quarter marked layoffs and a hiring freeze.

However, the crypto market has witnessed sharp selling in the recent few months, in sync with the global equity market, as a record surge in U.S. consumer inflation raised concerns about an aggressive rate hikes by the Federal Reserve that could lead to a recession. There is speculation in the market that the U.S. central bank may raise interest rates by 100 basis points (bps) later this month, after a 0.75% hike in the previous meeting.

Other popular digital currencies also saw a negative trend in the past 24 hours of trade. Ethereum, the world's second-biggest crypto, is down 3.01% to $1,490, while Binance Coin, Cordano, and XRP declined 2.97%, 6.28%, and 3.11%, respectively. Famous meme coins like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu also slid 6.59% and 6.26%, respectively.