|
|
Electric car manufacturing company Tesla has invested $1.5 billion into Bitcoin, according to its annual 10-K report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The news resulted in the price of Bitcoin (BTC) to shoot up from $39,000 to $43,000, breaking a new all-time high. The filing further indicated that Tesla will soon begin accepting Bitcoin as payment for its products and services in the near future.
Tesla Updated its Investment Policy to Incorporate Digital Assets
In January, 2021 Tesla updated its investment policy in order to diversify its cash on hand while maximizing returns. The latest policy involves incorporating its reserves into digital assets, gold, gold ETFs and other assets.
Bitwise researcher David Lawant pointed out that Tesla’s Bttcoin exposure represents roughly 7.7% of its gross cash position. The figure was derived from Tesla’s cash and equivalents, which netted a gross of $19.4 billion by the end of 2020, or $9.8 billion net of debt and finance leases.
According to the most recent 10K filing, @Tesla had cash & equivalents of $19.4 billion (gross), or $98 billion (net of debt and finance leases).
Using these figures as a reference, $1.5 billion in #Bitcoin represents an allocation of 7.7% on gross cash or 15.1% on net cash. https://t.co/FgRpzRcXBh pic.twitter.com/tDVqJGtj2Q
— David Lawant (@dlawant) February 8, 2021
Tesla’s Bitcoin investment comes just after the recent MicroStrategy WorldNow conference, that intended to allure institutional investors into Bitcoin. At the event, MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor said that he expected companies to convert their balance sheets into Bitcoin.
In a Twitter exchange in December, MicroStrategy’s Saylor extended an invitation to Elon Musk offering him his playbook for buying Bitcoin.
At the time, Saylor said to Musk:
“If you want to do your shareholders a $100 billion favor, convert the $TSLA balance sheet from USD to #BTC. Other firms on the S&P 500 would follow your lead & in time it would grow to become a $1 trillion favor.”
Tesla’s Elon Musk Worked His Magic on Dogecoin and Bitcoin
Earlier this month, Musk changed his Twitter bio to the bitcoin emoji. A week later, Musk removed the bitcoin hashtag from his Twitter bio while posted on a series of Dogecoin-related tweets from memes to comments that it will be the future currency of earth. Musk’s tweets in Dogecoin resulted in the price of Dogecoin to even pump upto 800% in a single day. However, it seems like Tesla was focused on Bitcoin, after all.
