Elon Musk Still Holds $936 Million In Bitcoin

Despite the panic last week over Tesla announcing that it sold 75% of its Bitcoin, the company reports holding $222 million worth of “digital assets” on its balance sheet as of the end of June.

The new details were in the company’s quarterly report, which it filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday morning. 

It’s usually the case that a company will put out a press release and host an earnings call a few days before submitting its full earnings report with the SEC. That’s why the news about Tesla selling 75%, or $936 million, worth of Bitcoin on Wednesday was out before the company had released more details.

Why Musk Sold A Bunch Of His Holdings

Tesla CEO Elon Musk went on to say during the company’s earning call on Wednesday that the company sold its Bitcoin to free up cash as COVID lockdowns continue in China.

“The reason we sold a bunch of our Bitcoin holdings was that we were uncertain when the COVID lockdowns in China would alleviate,” Musk said on last week’s call. “So it was important for us to maximize our cash position, given the uncertainty of COVID lockdowns in China.“

Bitcoin lost 2.5% from its share price in the hour after the announcement, dropping to $23,078.18 on Wednesday. On Monday afternoon, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization had slipped further and was trading at $21,969.29 per BTC, according to CoinMarketCap.

Meanwhile, it seems Tesla’s shareholders liked the news about the company selling a huge portion of its Bitcoin. TSLA shares went from $742.50 at market close on Wednesday, ahead of the announcement, and have increased 9% to $812.16 as of Monday afternoon. That’s the highest TSLA shares have been since early May, according to Yahoo Finance.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin Hangs on A Thread

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD halting a weekend drop at $21,900 to return towards the $23,000 on the day.

The pair held a trading range closely focused on key long-term trendlines, which analysts had previously described as essential to reclaim. Furthermore, these included the 50-day and 200-week moving averages (MAs), the latter particularly important as support during bear markets but which had acted as resistance since May.

Consequently, Investors who use eToro are also getting worried about their investments.

“Bullish that we perfectly held the 13d ema + horizontal 21.9k,” popular Twitter trading account CryptoMellany argued in part of her latest update of July 24:

“I think we’ll hang around 22.5k for today’s weekly close, new week starting with action down to 21-21.6k and then up for the rest of the week, forming a bull flag.”

The 50-day and 200-week MAs stood at $22,370 and $22,690, respectively, at the time of writing, with spot price at $22,670.

Continuing, fellow trader and analyst Jibon described the upcoming weekly close as “very very important.” An accompanying chart singled out $21,944 and $22,401 as the lines in the sand for a “bad” or “good” close.

Earlier in the week, Jibon had warned that such a “bad” result could be the start of a retracement to new macro lows for Bitcoin — as low as $12,000 — which continued strength could fuel a relief rally as high as $40,000.

If it were to close at current levels, BTC/USD would seal its highest levels since mid-June.