Elon Musk Retains Tesla’s BTC Holdings, Boosts DOGE With Scooby-Doo Meme

In the second quarter of last year, Tesla sold away 75 percent of its previous BTC holdings.

Written by Radhika Parashar, Edited by Manas Mitul | Updated: 20 July 2023 17:26 IST

Elon Musk Retains Tesla’s BTC Holdings, Boosts DOGE With Scooby-Doo Meme

Photo Credit: Reuters

In 2021, Tesla briefly started accepting BTC payments for select products and services

Highlights

Tesla’s BTC holdings are worth $184 million
Tesla does not accept crypto payments for now
Musk’s favour for Dogecoin continues to impact the memecoin’s prices

Tesla has retained its Bitcoin holdings for another quarter, without adding or subtracting tokens from its digital assets reserve for the fourth quarter in a row now. During its earning calls on Thursday, July 20, Tesla announced it has managed to retain Bitcoin with a net value of $184 million (roughly Rs. 1,509 crore). Bitcoin's current price is hovering around the mark of $30,000 (roughly Rs. 24.6 lakh), The electric vehicle (EV)-maker has often engaged with cryptocurrencies but has lacked in crypto-related action so far.

Tesla has maintained its image as a diamond hand in Bitcoin holdings since June last year. Diamond hand investors wait patiently for the crypto tokens in their possession to at least reach their expected highest pricing, before considering if they wish to sell their tokens or not.

In the second quarter of last year, Tesla sold away 75 percent of its previous BTC holdings. The company had bought this bulk of over 30,000 BTC for $1.5 billion (roughly Rs. 12,307 crore) in 2021.

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At the time of selling this load of BTC, however, Tesla had managed to earn $936 million (roughly Rs. 7,679 crore) in July last year, a CoinDesk report said, quoting Tesla's earning release.

Bitcoin has been infamous for being energy intensive and detrimental to the ecosystem. In 2021, Tesla briefly started accepting BTC payments for select products and services, before Musk rolled back the feature owing to its energy-related concerns.

At the time, Musk had tweeted that Tesla would restart transactions in BTC once its mining became more energy efficient.

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While Musk has stuck to his decision of halting all Bitcoin-related transactions, his recent tweets have pumped the billionaire's favoured memecoin, the Dogecoin.

The Twitter-owner on Thursday, July 20, posted a meme inspired by the famous Scooby Doo cartoon dog, reportedly sending DOGE into a profit-making frenzy.

Doges ftw pic.twitter.com/bl0trQ7BdU
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 19, 2023

This sent the market cap of DOGE from $9.64 billion (roughly Rs. 79,096 crore) to $9.96 billion (roughly Rs. 81,721 crore).

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Further reading: Cryptocurrency, Elon Musk, Tesla, Bitcoin

Radhika Parashar

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Radhika Parashar is a senior correspondent for Gadgets 360. She has been reporting on tech and telecom for the last three years now and will be focussing on writing about all things crypto. Besides this, she is a major sitcom nerd and often replies in Chandler Bing and Michael Scott references. For tips or queries you could reach out to her at RadhikaP@ndtv.com. More