By Ketki Saxena
Investing.com -- Aerospace technology firm SpaceX has reportedly sold approximately $373 million worth of Bitcoin (BTC) that it acquired starting from 2021, according to a Wall Street Journal report on Thursday. The company had recorded these Bitcoin holdings on its balance sheet during 2021 and 2022, but has since liquidated the digital asset.
However, the precise timing of SpaceX’s reported Bitcoin sale remains unclear.
In Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA)'s Q2 2023 earnings report, it was disclosed that Tesla had sold all but $184 million worth of its Bitcoin holdings. More specifically, the company liquidated over 30,000 BTC in the second quarter of 2022 for $936 million — approximately 75% of its original $1.5 billion BTC holdings.
The sale came amidst a period of significant volatility in the crypto market, which experienced a major crash in 2022 following the collapse of firms such as Terraform Labs. Despite this downturn, numerous technology companies and financial institutions continue to hold Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk had publicly announced in 2021 that the firm had acquired an unspecified amount of Bitcoin. This followed a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing revealing that Tesla, another company co-founded by Musk, intended to purchase $1.5 billion worth of the cryptocurrency. The announcement likely contributed to Bitcoin reaching a then all-time high price of over $43,000.
Musk, one of the world's wealthiest individuals, is known for his active commentary on cryptocurrencies through social media platforms. He has frequently expressed his views on various digital currencies including Dogecoin (DOGE) and Bitcoin. Following his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter — later rebranded as X — in October 2022, Musk suggested that the platform could offer an "entire financial world" encompassing banking and payment services