Tesla made history in the cryptocurrency world early this year when the company bought a whopping $1.5 billion in bitcoin (BTC) and started accepting payments with the crypto.
The news then gave a significant boost to the bitcoin price, which was already in an upward trend. Bitcoin reached a all time high (ATH) of about $64,800.
However, the bitcoin price then made a big dive, partly thanks to Tesla itself. CEO Elon Musk announced that Tesla will stop accepting BTC over “environmental concerns.” The bitcoin price even fell below $30,000 in July, but has since been in an upward trend again.
With bitcoin back at $58,000, it means Tesla’s BTC investment is back at $1 billion in profit. Tesla’s 43,200 BTC are now worth about $2.5 billion, which is an increase of 66.67%.
That means the company has now earned as much from bitcoin as the automaker had made in profits in the second quarter of 2021. This came to $1.14 billion in Q2 and was the first time the company had made a profit above $1. billion. The third quarter is expected to be even higher.
Tesla initially held 46,000 BTC, but sold some to “test its liquidity.” Tesla then made about $128 million from the sale. The huge profits Tesla has made from bitcoin may give other companies the confidence to follow in his footsteps. That was actually the expectation at the beginning of this year, but major announcements from companies were not forthcoming.
Yet someone was already ahead of Musk and Tesla. MicroStrategy was the first publicly traded company to make a major investment in bitcoin last year. MicroStrategy now owns no less than 144,042 BTC, worth about $6.55 billion.