Bitcoin (BTC) and Tesla: The comeback?

Recently, the twittersphere was ablaze with rumours of a possible return of Bitcoin to Tesla’s payment system. Supported by a photo of the source code, some observers speculated that the electric car manufacturer might be revising its stance on cryptocurrencies. Would Elon Musk’s company once again accept BTC? Let’s find out.

Bitcoin removed from Tesla’s source code

Last year, Tesla suffered enormously from the bitcoin price. The bear market of 2022 cost it a total net loss of $140 million. The electric car manufacturer had to back away from BTC payments and had even disposed of a large part of its crypto holdings.

According to U°Today, Tesla has completely renounced bitcoin payments for its products and services. For the source code of its dedicated payment page no longer bears any sign of the queen of cryptocurrencies. Only dogecoin appears.

There were rumors in the community that Tesla added Bitcoin and Dogecoin to its payment page source code. However, upon verification, it was found that Bitcoin and Dogecoin were already present in the source code as early as January 2023. It appears that Tesla did not remove this… pic.twitter.com/CATEWPmnVn

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) July 20, 2023

As stated in this tweet, Bitcoin and Dogecoin have been integrated into the source code of Tesla’s payment page since January 2023. In other words, Elon Musk’s company has never removed BTC from this interface despite stopping the receipt of cryptocurrency payments.

DOGE, meanwhile, has not suffered any mining. Proof that the boss is still a big fan of the memecoin despite the instability of his opinions on cryptocurrencies.

At present, Tesla has deleted "bitcoin" in the source code of its payment page, but still retains "dogecoin". pic.twitter.com/BQrRtuTN8Z

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) July 21, 2023

An adventure begun in 2021

Bitcoin and Tesla met two years ago. In 2021, the electric car manufacturer invested $1.5 billion in BTC.

This was followed by the acceptance of the cryptocurrency as a means of payment for its Tesla Cybertruck, Model 3/S/X/Y, etc. But Musk had to backtrack due to environmental concerns.

In the second quarter of 2022, Tesla sold around 75% of its BTC holdings out of concern for the company’s overall liquidity.

“As of the end of Q2, we have converted approximately 75% of our Bitcoin purchases into fiat currency. Q2 conversions added $936 million to our balance sheet.”

Since then, no sales or purchases of bitcoins have been made by Tesla in 4 consecutive quarters. The electric car specialist reportedly has $184 million in BTC at the moment.