Elon Musk implies Tesla could dump its bitcoin holdings

Dow Jones2021-05-17

Prices of the leading cryptocurrencies continued to slide Sunday, with bitcoin falling after Elon Musk suggested Tesla Inc. has sold or may sell its remaining bitcoin assets.

On Sunday, Twitter user @cryptowhale tweeted: "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..."

Musk replied cryptically: "Indeed."

That was enough to push bitcoin even lower. The leading cryptocurrency by market cap finished the trading day down about 8%, around $44,400, according to Coindesk data. While bitcoin and other cryptos are traded 24 hours a day, the daily session resets at 5 p.m. Eastern; bitcoin prices gained in the new session Sunday evening. Bitcoin is down about 18% over the past five days, and 27% over the past month, though is still up 53% year to date.

Ethereum sank about 11% on Sunday, and Ripple fell around 8%.

Crypto prices -- especially the prices of bitcoin and dogecoin -- have swung wildly over the past week following comments by Musk, starting with his "Saturday Night Live" appearance .

Musk's comment Sunday came days after he announced Tesla would no longer accept bitcoin that dogecoin is a "potentially promising" alternative, sending its prices soaring.

Dogecoin , meanwhile, slipped Sunday to about 48 cents, still up about 3% over the past five trading sessions.

Tesla $(TSLA)$ bought about $1.5 billion in bitcoin .

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