Tesla (TSLA) already sold some of its $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin purchased earlier this year, and it made over $100 million from the sale.
In February, Tesla surprised many by jumping on the cryptocurrency bandwagon with a $1.5 billion purchase of Bitcoin — the biggest cryptocurrency in the world.
Last month, the automaker also started accepting Bitcoin as payment for its electric cars.
Bitcoin trading prices went on a wild ride since the purchase to new highs and then retreated significantly over the last few weeks.
Now, with the release of Tesla’s Q1 2021 financial results, Tesla confirmed that it actually trimmed its position in Bitcoin by 10%.
Tesla disclosed having sold $272 million worth of Bitcoin during the last quarter and making roughly $101 million in profit from the sale:
“Year over year, positive impacts from volume growth, regulatory credit revenue growth, gross margin improvement driven by further product cost reductions and sale of Bitcoin ($101 million positive impact net of related impairments, in “Restructuring & Othe” line) were mainly offset by a lower ASP, increased SBC, additional supply chain costs, R&D investments and other items.”
Tesla disclosed that it now held $1.331 billion worth of “digital assets,” which is believed to be only bitcoins, at the end of the quarter.
Zack Kirkhorn, Tesla’s Chief Financial Officer and more recently Tesla’s “Master of Coin,” confirmed in a conference call following the release of Tesla’s Q1 results that the sale occurred in late March.
Kirkhorn confirmed that Tesla plans to hold Bitcoin long-term:
“We do believe in the value of bitcoin long term and we will hold bitcoin long term, and accumulate bitcoin from the transactions from our customers buying vehicles.”
When asked about the logic of Tesla investing in Bitcoin, the CFO said that with yields being so low, they were looking for alternative ways to store money that could be quickly accessed while still potentially gaining value.
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