On Tuesday morning, cryptocurrencies saw an uptick, after weekend sell-offs caused the price of Bitcoin to drop to its lowest point since February, according to Yahoo Finance. Bitcoin was up 1%, trading at $45,005.418, while Ethereum and Ripple rose 0.9% and 6%, respectively.
The sell-off was initially sparked by Elon Musk, who said “indeed” in response to a tweet saying that “Bitcoiners are going to slap themselves next quarter when they find out Tesla dumped the rest of their Bitcoin holdings.” The Bitcoin community apparently is not happy with the Tesla CEO.
Musk later clarified “Tesla has not sold any Bitcoin”.
To clarify speculation, Tesla has not sold any Bitcoin
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 17, 2021
A new cryptocurrency also popped up, entitled “stopelon,” with the purpose of limiting Musk’s influence over a volatile crypto market.
Indeed
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2021
Musk has recently been sharing his support for cryptocurrencies more and more, with Tesla having earned $272 million in capital gains from Bitcoin. Just months after deciding to accept Bitcoin for its vehicles, Tesla last week made the decision to reverse the policy and is no longer accepting the cryptocurrency, due to the latter’s environmental impact.
In addition, Musk has also shown support for meme cryptocurrency Dogecoin, even dubbing himself the Dogefather in advance of a Saturday Night Live appearance.
A developer revealed last week that Dogecoin has been working with Musk since 2019, following Musk’s announcement that he is currently working with Dogecoin developers to improve the currency’s transaction efficiency.
