Elon Musk Says SpaceX Holding Bitcoin, Tesla Likely to Begin Accepting BTC Payment Again
Nicholas Otieno Jul 22, 2021 06:00
Elon Musk reveals that SpaceX is a Bitcoin investor and Tesla is likely to resume accepting bitcoin as a form of payment.
Speaking at the B-word virtual event on Wednesday, July 21, Elon Musk disclosed that SpaceX aerospace manufacturer has invested its treasury reserves in Bitcoin, following Tesla’s Bitcoin purchase early this year.
The B-word free virtual event was organized by Jack Dorsey, who invited Elon Musk to speak at the conference. While speaking at the event alongside Dorsey, Musk revealed that he personally owns a huge amount of Bitcoin and a smaller amount of Ethereum:
“The only thing I own of any significance beyond Tesla and SpaceX stock is Bitcoin, and then some Ethereum and Dogecoin; If the price of bitcoin goes down, I lose money. I might pump, but I don’t dump... I would like to see bitcoin succeed,”
Musk also added that Tesla could soon start accepting Bitcoin payments once the company has conducted its due diligence in assessing the actual impact of the cryptocurrency on climate change. “There appears to be a positive trend in the energy usage of bitcoin,” he stated.
Meanwhile, Musk mentioned that Tesla will resume accepting Bitcoin payments when renewable energy is “at or above 50% and that there is a trend towards increasing that number.”
Despite the recent price plunge, he clarified that he has no intentions to sell Bitcoin personally or through Tesla and SpaceX. Furthermore, Musk hinted that the negative interest rates in Europe could compel Tesla to invest more of its balance sheet into Bitcoin.
Musk also asked Dorsey if he would start accepting Bitcoin payments from advertisers on Twitter. “Let’s do it,” Dorsey responded positively.
Bitcoin Extends Rally
Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX, is one of the loudest voices in the crypto world. He frequently uses his Twitter account to post about various crypto tokens and often causes wild swings in their values.
Tesla was once accepting Bitcoin as a payment method in February when the firm bought $1.5 billion in Bitcoin.
However, in May, Musk caused turmoil in the crypto sector by announcing that Tesla would cease accepting bitcoin payments due to the huge amount of energy used to mine the crypto and causing its value to fall.
Since then, China also cracked down on crypto mining and trading and eventually expelled crypto miners out of the country. New data from Cambridge University indicates that several miners are now migrating to the US, which is now the second-largest hub for the world’s crypto miners.
Musk’s comments show that he still exerts significant power over crypto markets. The price of Bitcoin plunged below $30,000 on Monday, July 19, after surging to an all-time high of above $63,000 in April. But yesterday, after the billionaire investor revealed more details about Tesla’s plan to reopen accepting Bitcoin payments, the price of the flagship cryptocurrency rebounded by 8%, was trading at $32,018 during the intraday.
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