Electric vehicle giant Tesla likely still holds $772.5 million in Bitcoin (BTC), according to the crypto deanonymizing platform Arkham.
Last week, Arkham flagged a series of on-chain transactions indicating Tesla had moved its trove of 11,509 BTC for the first time in two years.
However, the receiving addresses appear to be new wallets owned by Tesla, according to the crypto platform.
“The Bitcoin has been split between 7 wallets holding 1100 and 2200 BTC. All holding wallets received test transactions and all but one hold a round number of BTC.
Tesla’s BTC is currently held at:
1Fnhp – 2109.3 BTC ($142.2 million)
1LERL – 1900 BTC ($128.1 million)
1D6Vh – 1800 BTC ($121.3 million)
16QZn – 1700 BTC ($114.6 million)
1QC2z – 1600 BTC ($107.8 million)
1Phab – 1300 BTC ($87.6 million)
1MGM8 – 1100 BTC ($74.1 million)
Some have speculated that this is movement to a custodian, for example to secure a loan against the BTC.”
Tesla bought $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin in January 2021 and then sold off $272 million worth of BTC that same year and another $936 million in BTC in 2022.
The car company is currently the fourth-biggest corporate owner of the leading crypto asset by market cap, according to BitcoinTreasuries.net.
In 2021, Tesla also briefly enabled customers to pay for purchases using BTC, but the firm axed that feature later that same year, citing climate concerns regarding Bitcoin mining. Tesla chief executive Elon Musk said at the time that the company would likely resume accepting Bitcoin payments once the mining process became more environmentally friendly.
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