Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer, Elon Musk, tweeted on Saturday that in a battle between fiat and cryptocurrencies, his support is with crypto. Despite this, cryptocurrencies continue to witness selling pressure as the market plunges.
“The true battle is between fiat & crypto. On balance, I support the latter,” Musk said on Twitter in reply to a user who asked him what his thoughts were about people who were angry at him because of crypto.
Tesla’s relationship with cryptocurrency has been a rollercoaster of ups and downs. The electric vehicle maker said in February that it had purchased Bitcoin for US$1.5 billion (£1.1 billion) and expected to accept the cryptocurrency as a form of payment from its customers in the future. On the path to an all-time high of over US$65,000 in April – and a paper profit of well over US$1 billion for Tesla – the price of the largest cryptocurrency soared that day from just over US$39,000 to US$46,000.
After only a few weeks, the situation has completely transformed. The first came in late April, when it was revealed that Tesla had sold 10% of its bitcoin holdings, ostensibly to illustrate the digital currency’s liquidity. More importantly, Musk has now revealed on Twitter that Tesla has halted Bitcoin purchases due to concerns over the cryptocurrency’s “rapidly expanding use of fossil fuels” in mining. This has sparked a massive sell-off in the cryptocurrency markets, with bitcoin plummeting from around $55,000 to below US$40,000.
Earlier this month, he referred to cryptocurrency as a “hustle” while appearing as a guest host on “Saturday Night Live,” causing prices to plummet. Musk stated some days ago that he has not sold and would not sell any of his Dogecoin holdings.
However, Musk’s recent support for cryptocurrencies in his tweet has not been enough to turn the cryptocurrency market bullish, as bitcoin is currently trading at US$38,188 and dogecoin is currently trading at $0.35. Despite Elon Musk’s encouragement in a tweet, the cryptocurrency market has dropped 10.41% in the last 24 hours according to Coinbase at the time of writing this article, indicating growing selling pressure.
In the words of Abraham Lincoln “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” As Investors are becoming more cautious and sceptical about the crypto space, the key question is, would Elon have the ability to maintain dominance as a market mover if he continues to increase volatility in the market?
