Elon Musk is once again trying to stoke the crypto sector through Tesla. The largest Electric Vehicle (EV) manufacturer in the world in a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) stated that it once again looking to accept cryptocurrency payments for its range of EVs. The company has previously accepted Bitcoin before but that lasted only for a few months before Musk pulled the plug on it, citing environmental concerns due to Bitcoin mining. However, he did leave the door open for re-accepting the cryptocurrency provided it achieved certain sustainable goals.
Elon Musk, who is the CEO of Tesla became a larger-than-life influencer in the crypto community in late 2019 and early 2020. More than Bitcoin itself, he was interested in Dogecoin and the idea of a meme cryptocurrency amused him. His rabid fan base soon responded to his continuous Dogecoin and crypto memes and references. But, starting early this year, Musk went full throttle to stir up conversation around the crypto scene. He also unveiled that Tesla had purchased a sizable $1.5 billion in Bitcoin back in February when it was worth $38k. This revelation rejuvenated the sector and it tens of millions of new investors entered the scene.
However, in May, Musk backflipped on the matter and in a dramatic turn of events, he tweeted that Bitcoin payment feature was being paused for now. But, he always maintained that he would be open to accepting it again in the near future. He also announced that he had sold around 10% of Tesla’s purchased Bitcoin for liquidity purposes. This news emboldened the bears and the index took a massive 60% price hit. Many people also lost huge sums of money and they blamed Musk and his sudden flip flop for their losses. Many traditional outlets oversold this news and made it seemed like Tesla was liquidating all of its Bitcoin and Musk had a change of heart. However, Musk negated those fake news bits later on but the damage had been done.
The Tesla CEO has since tried hard to re-enter the crypto news coverage and has shared meme after meme, hints after hints but nobody is taking cue from him anymore. Now he is close to re-accepting Bitcoin payments for Tesla’s cars. The latest filing with the US SEC the company stated that it may start re-accepting crypto payments soon.
The filing read:
“We believe in the long term potential of digital assets both as an investment and also as a liquid alternative to cash.”
It remains to be seen when the company will decide to go forward with this move but it can be expected soon enough. However, the impact is going to be smaller than last time, that is for sure.
Image Source: pixabay.com
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