Earlier this month, Tesla revealed it had invested $1.5 billion USD into digital currency, Bitcoin. The company also stated it would accept Bitcoin payment in the future for Tesla purchases.
Now, we may know how Tesla purchased its Bitcoin, according to The Block, which says it has “learned that Tesla is among Coinbase’s deep-pocketed corporate clientele.”
Unnamed sources close to the deal note Coinbase helped Tesla purchase its Bitcoin investment during several days in the first week of February.
The Block says the Bitcoin order “was routed to several over-the-counter trading desks,” in similar fashion to how the latter helped MicroStrategy purchase its own Bitcoin investment.
“The source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that Coinbase’s prime brokerage arm counts more than five Fortune 500 companies as clients,” reports The Block, noting Coinbase is preparing to go public later in 2021.
With Bitcoin’s latest price surge, topping $51,000 USD for the first time, Tesla probably has made more money from its cryptocurrency gains, than from sales of its electric vehicles, points out Yahoo News, which provided the following breakdown:
In the month of January, Bitcoin traded between $29,333 and $37,020. A $1.5-billion purchase could have gotten Tesla anywhere between 37,020 and 51,137 Bitcoin. The average would come out to 44,079 Bitcoin.
Based on these scenarios, the value of Tesla’s Bitcoin is worth the following with the current Bitcoin price of $48,450.
51,137 Bitcoin: $2.48 billion, profit of $0.98 billion
44,079 Bitcoin: $2.14 billion, profit of $0.64 billion
37,020 Bitcoin: $1.79 billion, profit of $0.29 billion
Given the current price of Bitcoin at $51,435, and the average number of estimated Bitcoin at 44,079 above, that works out to $2.26 billion USD. Minus Tesla’s original $1.5 billion and that means a profit of $760 million USD so far. Not too shabby.
With Bitcoin’s continued surge, expect Tesla’s gain from the digital currency to just keep climbing and climbing.
[via @SawyerMerritt]
