Bitcoin slid below $US45,000 ($57,800) for the first time in almost three months after the billionaire owner of the electric-car maker seemed to agree with a Twitter post that said Tesla should divest what at one pointwas a $US1.5 billion stake in the largest cryptocurrency. It traded at $US45,270 as of 5.51 pm in New York,down about $US4000 from where it ended on Friday.
The online commentary was the latest from the mercurial billionaire in a week of public statements that have roiled digital tokens. He lopped nearly $US10,000 off the price of bitcoin in hours aftersaying Tesla wouldn’t take it for cars. A few days earlier,he hostedSaturday Night Live and joked that Dogecoin,a token he had previously promoted,was a “hustle”, denting its price. A few days later he tweeted he was working with Doge developers to improve its transaction efficiency.
Musk’s disclosure in early February that Tesla used $US1.5 billion of its nearly $US20 billion in corporate cash to buy bitcoin sent the token’s price to record and lent legitimacy to electronic currencies,which have become more of a mainstream asset in recent years despite some scepticism.
His latest dust up with bitcoin started with a tweet from a person using the handle @CryptoWhale,which said,“bitcoiners are going to slap themselves next quarter when they find out Tesla dumped the rest of their #bitcoin holdings. With the amount of hate @elonmusk is getting,I wouldn’t blame him...”
The Tesla chief executive officer responded,“Indeed.”
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The Twitter account @CryptoWhale,which calls itself a “crypto analyst” in its bio,also publishes a Medium blog on market and crypto trends.
Musk has spent hours Sunday hitting back at several different users on Twitter who criticised his change of stance on bitcoin last week,a move he said was sparked by environmental concerns over the power demands to process bitcoin transactions. He said at the time that the company wouldn’t be selling any bitcoin it holds.