The recent fall in the crypto market wiped billions of dollars from investors' portfolios. Tesla was among the unluckiest. According to official data, the company lost at least $101 million after the BTC crash.
Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company unveiled these figures in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). "In the year ended December 31, 2021, we recorded approximately $101 million of impairment losses resulting from changes to the carrying value of our bitcoin and gains of $128 million on certain sales of bitcoin by us."
Despite significant losses over the past year, Tesla was able to earn even more on bitcoins than on sales of electric cars. As of February, its profit amounted to $1.08 billion. Overall, Tesla purchased a total of $1.5 billion in bitcoin in 2021. In 2020, electric car sales brought the tech giant $721 million, The Times noted.
Apart from investments, Tesla has been accepting bitcoins as a means of payment for some time. However, in May, Tesla CEO Elon Musk suspended acceptance due to the negative impact of mining on the environment. "When there’s confirmation of reasonable (50%) clean energy usage by miners with a positive future trend, Tesla will resume allowing bitcoin transactions," Elon Musk said. "Tesla’s mission is accelerating the advent of sustainable energy. We can’t be the company that does that and also not do appropriate diligence on the energy usage of bitcoin," he added.
