The electric car company, Tesla, did not buy or sell any bitcoin in the quarter, after selling 75% of its holdings in the second quarter.
Tesla (TSLA), a manufacturer of electric vehicles, said in its most recent financial report on Wednesday that neither it nor any of its bitcoin assets were sold during the third quarter.
At the conclusion of the second quarter, when Tesla stunned some investors by selling $936 million worth of bitcoin, or almost 75% of its entire holdings, in order to raise money, the value of its digital assets remained at $218 million. Since the price of bitcoin stayed about the same at the conclusion of the second and third quarters at just under $20,000, Tesla did not record any impairment charges to the value of its holdings.
Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk stated on the company’s earnings call for the second quarter that the sale was made due to the uncertainty of the COVID lockdowns in China,” but added that the sale “should not be taken as some verdict on bitcoin.
Tesla is open to increasing its exposure to bitcoin in the future. At the time of the first announcement, the price of bitcoin dropped by roughly 1.7%, but it quickly recovered following Musk’s comments on the call.
Tesla had $1.26 billion in bitcoin (BTC) at the conclusion of the first three quarters. However, this dropped to just $218 million at the end of the second. According to the corporation, it generated a gain of $64 million on the sale of its assets in the second quarter. However, this gain was offset by impairment charges on the remaining bitcoin, totaling $170 million, which resulted in a net cost to the company’s profit and loss statement of $106 million.
Tesla’s History with Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies
Tesla made the announcement that it had bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin in February 2021, which drove up the price of bitcoin. Later in the first quarter, the corporation sold a 10% portion of its holdings in bitcoin, increasing its profits by $272 million. Up until the second quarter of this year, it has not purchased or sold any further bitcoin.
In all, Tesla announced adjusted profits per share for the third quarter of $1.05. This is above the $1.00 average of analyst projections submitted to FactSet, on sales of $21.45 billion, falling short of the $21.98 billion estimate. In after-hours trading on Wednesday, Tesla shares were down little more than 4% at $212.83.
Since January, the automobile firm has allowed customers to pay using Dogecoin (DOGE), the cryptocurrency operated by Elon Musk. In May, his rocket-building firm SpaceX quickly adopted the same strategy.
One of Tesla’s most recent offerings was a limited-edition whistle that was exclusively available for purchase using DOGE. It sold for 1,000 DOGE, which at the time was equivalent to around $60. Although the precise number of units made available is unclear, they apparently sold out in a matter of hours.
