- Tesla remains mum since its whale Bitcoin transactions last week to multiple crypto wallets, which amounted to around $760 million.
- Arkham Intelligence confirmed that the same wallet addresses belonged to the automaker, quelling speculations of the company’s potential asset dump.
Tesla’s Surprise Bitcoin Whale Transactions
Last week, Tesla made a surprising move in its Bitcoin (BTC) holdings. The company led by CEO Elon Musk suddenly transferred its entire 11,509 BTC reserves to several unregistered wallets.
At that time, the whale transfer amounted to around $760 million as Bitcoin hovered along the same price it had now between $65K and $66K. The crypto community was initially left wondering whether or not Tesla was planning to dump its Bitcoin holdings.
The FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) spreaders naturally capitalized on the opportunity to warn people about Tesla’s possible BTC sell-off. For the pessimists, such an event could have potentially massive ramifications in driving trader and investor sentiment down not only on the premier crypto asset but also for altcoins that tend to trail its price movements.
Meanwhile, the company and Musk’s silence on the subject didn’t help ease the speculations. Fortunately, market sentiment during that time was riding on a high note, as indicated by Alternative’s Crypto Fear & Greed Index’s scores between 71 and 73 along the “Greed” zone. Hence, the whale transaction in question didn’t deter BTC’s momentum toward $69K by Monday midnight.
Arkham Intelligence’s Confirmation
To help put the Bitcoin and crypto community at ease, Arkham Intelligence finally clarified the matter. According to its on-chain monitoring platform, Tesla owned the wallets that served as recipients of its whale BTC transactions last week.
Arkham Intelligence also claimed in an update on X (formerly Twitter) that Tesla only underwent “wallet rotations” over that period. Therefore, all its 11,509 BTC holdings are still intact.
At the same price during last week’s huge transfers, Tesla’s Bitcoin haul remains at roughly $760 million this Wednesday. The company’s current holdings are part of its accumulations between 2021 and 2022 at an average price of $34,200 per BTC. Doing the math, that’s nearly double the digital asset’s US dollar exchange rates today.
It should be noted, however, that Tesla’s Bitcoin supply now only makes up 75% less than its initial acquisition. Nonetheless, Musk assured that the company’s previous BTC sales yielded significant profits.
For Musk, Tesla’s earlier BTC sales only went on to show the crypto asset’s liquidity and its capability to support large transactions. Furthermore, it helped the automaker raise extra cash for its reserves in case of a future economic downturn.
