Tesla eventually sold 75 percent of its Bitcoin endowments.
These hands were not so much diamond.
The official reasons were blamed directly by Elon Musk on lockdowns in China that would have compromised the company's liquidity.
In fact, without the sale of BTC for proceeds of $936 million, free cash flow in Q2 would have been negative by about $300 million, making last night's quarterly report much less "interesting."
The sale was estimated to be formalized between May and June 2022, for an estimated loss of 6% (75% of $1.33 billion is about $998 million).
Someone identified the date of May 10, someone else those of June 12/13 when the Coinbase market maker sent to multiple exchanges about 63,600 BTC, reasonably to execute a large order (pictured), so the sale price was in the $30K area or just below.
I personally lean toward the June hypothesis, not least because if the May 10 date is confirmed, it means that the UST depeg and LUNA collapse was greatly exacerbated by Tesla sales.
To recapitulate the events in Q2, Bitcoin endured the crash of the Earth ecosystem with the related sell-off of the thousands of BTC held by the Luna Foundation, the subsequent insolvencies of Celsius, 3AC and other lending platforms that had to sell off all the assets they held to face bankruptcy, and now we also find out about the heavy sale of Tesla.
All this in the worst macro and geopolitical environment in 40 years. Not a bad stress test, what do you think?
Net of the short-term consequences (it will take a few days to metabolize the news), I think this is good for the cryptocurrency market.
Elon Musk has always been toxic to the industry (I think everyone will remember his pathetic spins in 2021), and the fact that Tesla's sales have already been digested by the market has freed us from the encumbrance of the threat of Tesla "pulling the shackle" at any moment.
He will probably go on to develop other shitcoin projects that can further inflate his Ego... bye bye Elon..