Tesla: "We have converted approximately 75% of our BTC into fiat currency"

[tomahawk9]

Source: https://ir.tesla.com/press-release/tesla-releases-second-quarter-2022-financial-results

did they sell at a loss?

[DaveF]

Depends on 'which' bitcoin they sold. They have / had been accumulating for a very long time so depending on how they want to show it for tax reasons they could have sold at a loss or a profit.

At a guess, they want to build up a bit of a war chest of fiat for some reason. You don't sell assets just to improve your balance sheet for no reason.
That or they are feeling the pressure from elsewhere to sell it.

-Dave

[darkangel11]

They bought around February - March 2021 so 30-50k which means they sold at a loss adding power to the April - May crash.

This should be a lesson to those of you who want to invest in companies like Tesla. These moves show that they aren't run by geniuses but normal people who buy at the top and then panic sell at the bottom. They don't care about bitcoin, decentralization, changing the world. They also don't care about the environment. What Musk did pumping and dumping bitcoin and saying that it's bad for the environment was a low level scam you'd expect from a street peddler, not a CEO of a big company.

[Fortify]

Depends on 'which' bitcoin they sold. They have / had been accumulating for a very long time so depending on how they want to show it for tax reasons they could have sold at a loss or a profit.

At a guess, they want to build up a bit of a war chest of fiat for some reason. You don't sell assets just to improve your balance sheet for no reason.
That or they are feeling the pressure from elsewhere to sell it.

-Dave

Elon could very well be directing this sort of liquidation with his upcoming Twitter troubles, like you say there could possibly be some tax advantages to be gained (in terms of stating a loss). Elon is a big manipulator and he was the one who came up with this crazy idea to jump Tesla on to the crypto bandwagon, so it would make sense if he was the one directing them to unwind it. He might need some of that cash flow to start fighting a rather expensive court case, considering he needs to find $44 billion which he committed to buying Twitter. Either that or they do not consider it to be viable assets any longer, it's a perfectly valid strategy to cut your losses and attempt to recoup at least some money if you think it'll fall even further.

[Hispo]

I am not completely sure what price they bought in, but as mentioned before it seemed it was around 30k-50k.
Also, why would a company like Tesla be in such need for cash that they decided to sell their Bitcoin investment at a loss?

I believe it is highly unlikely they needed the cash, keeping in mind their stock price is relatively stable at the moment, around 700$ per share.
I'd dare the speculate that this was the result of pressure by some shareholders that thought it was a good idea to panic sell or perhaps this was a preventive measure in the advent of thougher environmental regulations against PoW cryptocurrencies and those companies that holds them.

In any case, this only works as a reminder that there are people in this forum that are more authentic Bitcoiners holding a few satothis than a big company holding thousands of BTC.

[uneng]

Couldn't it be just another manipulative movement from Elon Musk to play with market's prices? He expects to be followed by big investors on his steps, so when he announces he is going to sell bitcoins or has sold bitcoins, others will simply do the same, dumping the price even more, therefore Tesla and Musk can buy bitcoin again much cheaper and increase their holdings, wealthy and influence.

[DaveF]

Couldn't it be just another manipulative movement from Elon Musk to play with market's prices? He expects to be followed by big investors on his steps, so when he announces he is going to sell bitcoins or has sold bitcoins, others will simply do the same, dumping the price even more, therefore Tesla and Musk can buy bitcoin again much cheaper and increase their holdings, wealthy and influence.

No, it's not enough to do anything to the market and it's already been sold.
Could be dozens of reasons:
From they want to expand in China and as we know China is anti BTC
As others have pointed out could be a large investor / fund wants them out of the financial market so to speak and in the car building market.
Could be they are worried about something and they want to sell now so when they spend the money it does not look like they are selling because they had to.
And so on. It's less then $1 billion US so not that much in the overall BTC market.

-Dave

[Welsh]

This should be a lesson to those of you who want to invest in companies like Tesla. These moves show that they aren't run by geniuses but normal people who buy at the top and then panic sell at the bottom. They don't care about bitcoin, decentralization, changing the world. They also don't care about the environment. What Musk did pumping and dumping bitcoin and saying that it's bad for the environment was a low level scam you'd expect from a street peddler, not a CEO of a big company.

I mean, I think it's probably hard to argue that Elon is an exceptionally talented businessman, and definitely has some other very good qualities about him, in the intellectual field. So, I'm not going to take that away from him. However, the reason they likely sold was stakeholders, and public perception, rather than the issue of not believing in Bitcoin or wanting to say invested in Bitcoin.

These days, reputation is everything, and especially for a car company that's trying to appear to be the greener of the alternatives. Supporting a currency which has had some very public negative news about energy usage isn't exactly the greatest look for them, even if the claims aren't that valid.

[stompix]

Could be dozens of reasons:
From they want to expand in China and as we know China is anti BTC

And you think Musk can keep silent for two weeks without posting something about Bitcoin or Dogecoin?
If they would have wanted to give a signal to Chinese authorities they would have sold everything, besides, what do you think is more unpopular for the CCP, Tesla holding some bitcoins, or Starlink offering uncensored internet? 

Anyhow
They bought Bitcoin worth 1.5 billion, they sold 10% of their holdings last year now they've sold 75% of it and got $936M and have currently $218 million.
So if we go from 1.35 billion worth of coins, 75% would be just 1.01, so the maximum loss would be around 70 million, still lower than their claimed $101 million of profit from the first sale.

[franky1]

They bought around February - March 2021 so 30-50k which means they sold at a loss adding power to the April - May crash.

no they didnt
elon bought his stash in-before december 2020. he reported it on the december 2020 tax filings..
.. those tax filings entered the media circus of speculation viral commenting about it in feb-march 2021

[Kemarit]

Couldn't it be just another manipulative movement from Elon Musk to play with market's prices? He expects to be followed by big investors on his steps, so when he announces he is going to sell bitcoins or has sold bitcoins, others will simply do the same, dumping the price even more, therefore Tesla and Musk can buy bitcoin again much cheaper and increase their holdings, wealthy and influence.

I doubt if this is a move to manipulate the price, we are in the levels of $20k and just occasional pump and his selling should somewhat the market very hard, but it seems the effect is not that felt or it is very slow right now.

I can't recall when exactly Musk started to hype on bitcoin, but I think as smart as he is, probably he be selling at a lost here. And yeah, you could say that this is a business move on his part as he is moving his money right now to whatever purpose he thinks it may serve him and his company (maybe another venture or something).

[dansus021]

i heard the news about tesla sold their 10% of bitcoin that to test out the liquidity in 2021 that making a whooping profit of around 101 Million dollar

quick math if tesla sold their 10% and 75% they still have 15% right  

"In the first quarter of 2021, when Tesla went big on bitcoin, the company said the decision was a matter of becoming more flexible, diversifying and picking up returns from its cash holdings. The company quickly sold 10% as the currency ran up, contributing $101 million of profit in the period." - https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/20/tesla-converted-75percent-of-bitcoin-purchases-to-fiat-currency-in-q2-2022.html

and he said this "Musk said in an earnings call on Wednesday. “This should be not taken as some verdict on bitcoin,” he said, adding that Tesla is open to increasing its crypto holdings in the future"

and like others said we don't know pretty much in what price they buy, so I think tesla still sold at profit in average but I don't know if they have been cutloss because need hard cash

[ChiBitCTy]

I’m not really all that surprised. I’m tired of Elon having such an influence when it comes to the cryptocurrency space. Truth is the guy completely talks out of his ass when it comes to bitcoin and cryptocurrency, so maybe this means he will talk less about it. Tired of that joker.

[Darker45]

This should be a lesson to those of you who want to invest in companies like Tesla. These moves show that they aren't run by geniuses but normal people who buy at the top and then panic sell at the bottom.

In fairness to Tesla, I don't think this is a simple case of buying at the top and then panic selling at the bottom. This to me is a business move and not an emotional decision. And as DaveF pointed out, "you don't sell assets just to improve your balance sheet for no reason." So there must be something the company is up to. They might be taking a certain business position which requires them enough cash. I believe this company won't take a loss just like that.

[Poker Player]

Okay, so all the excitement and price hype of announcing the purchase at the time has turned out to be a bluff. It also seemed to be the beginning of a series of many companies converting part of their reserves to Bitcoin, convinced by Saylor, but Saylor's speech seems to be dismantled more and more every day, especially borrowing from anything to buy Bitcoin, even mortgaging your house if you had it paid to buy Bitcoin.

[Smack That Ace]

They bought around February - March 2021 so 30-50k which means they sold at a loss adding power to the April - May crash.

This should be a lesson to those of you who want to invest in companies like Tesla. These moves show that they aren't run by geniuses but normal people who buy at the top and then panic sell at the bottom. They don't care about bitcoin, decentralization, changing the world. They also don't care about the environment. What Musk did pumping and dumping bitcoin and saying that it's bad for the environment was a low level scam you'd expect from a street peddler, not a CEO of a big company.

Tesla holds 43,200 BTC and in its Q2 report (April to June) it announced that it sold 75%, about 32,400 BTC or $936 million. 936000000/32,400=~$28,888 . They sell for an average of $28.8k
At this average price, I don't think they sold at a loss.


https://bitcointreasuries.net/?fbclid=IwAR0qndALqGOIx8bWphUkh-EZU2I_SgG2oua2dnB_dZWV7PE-JnC7UD9cBuc

According to twitter Ki Young Ju, on June 12, there was a large amount of BTC transferred from Coinbase to Binance and Bitfinex, in order to help customers sell a large amount of BTC and today confirmed that the seller is Tesla.

https://twitter.com/ki_young_ju/status/1549872949586546688?fbclid=IwAR3GXvDoBQZTdjkhLlSosvUVYf3kiYT41YeG8tm6xV1t0NOPHE3kngdLuJE

According to my suspicions, the recent crash of Celsius and 3 Arrows may have been caused by this massive bitcoin sale.

[pooya87]

did they sell at a loss?

Who cares about that. The important thing is that this is an excellent news. Every time a big whale sells their bitcoin or a large portion of it, that is an excellent news because market manipulation capability shrinks. Not to mention the risk of them panic selling when their businesses go under.
In other words it is always better to have 1000 people own 1 bitcoin each than to have 1 entity owning 1000 bitcoins.

[Davidvictorson]

This is purely business. No emotions attached just business thinking. They wanted to maximize their cash position as a result of the Covid lockdowns in China. That is the reason according to Elon why they sold their bitcoin. Would Tesla had converted 75% of its bitcoin holdings if the price of was still at its all-time high is $69,045 or if we weren't in the crypto winter?

[mindrust]

Why don't tell just spit it out like how it is?

They simply "sold" their bitcoins.

Nobody cares what this paperhand boi Elon does anyway. Maybe he will learn a lesson from this mistake. You always "buy low and sell high" You just don't do the opposite because it makes you lose money.

Hearing that Elon?

[onecall123]

It's nothing new for Elon Musk to manipulate the market. 75% of Tesla's bitcoin holdings were sold in Q2 for $936 million.

Don't you think Tesla paid more per Bitcoin? The things has yet to be resolved. Covid restrictions shut down his factory in China, which is why he's selling bitcoin. Is it wise to sell bitcoin during a bear market? Is there a logical explanation for selling at a loss of approximately $500 million? For hand cash only!