In brief

  • Bitcoin's price has continued to slide following Tesla CEO Elon Musk's U-turn on the cryptocurrency.
  • Musk has stated that Tesla "has not sold any Bitcoin".

The price of Bitcoin dropped to lows of $42,024 on Monday morning, continuing its downward trend from last week and marking a fall of 16% from its Saturday high of $50,615. 

Although Bitcoin has since recovered to its current value of just under $45,000, it marks a continuing slide in the cryptocurrency’s price following Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s announcement that the carmaker would stop accepting Bitcoin as payment.

Tesla’s move was prompted by concerns over the cryptocurrency’s environmental impact, Musk explained. “We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel,” the Tesla CEO said in a tweet last week. 

Over the weekend, crypto prices continued to tumble after Musk responded to a suggestion that “Bitcoiners are going to slap themselves next quarter when they find out Tesla dumped the rest of their #Bitcoin holdings,” with the single word, “Indeed." Musk later noted in a tweet that “to clarify speculation, Tesla has not sold any Bitcoin."

Bitcoin struggles with Musk’s U-turn

On May 12, before Musk’s announcement that Tesla would stop accepting Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency’s price was as high as $57,700. 

Since then, however, it has steadily decreased. According to CoinGecko, Bitcoin is down 8% in just the last 24 hours. In the last week, Bitcoin has fallen by 22%.

The downward trend is the latest in a long line of examples where Elon Musk’s tweets have moved the Bitcoin market. 

Three months prior to his U-turn, Musk appeared to be all-in on Bitcoin, overseeing Tesla’s whopping $1.5 billion investment in the flagship cryptocurrency on February 8, 2021. 

One hour after Tesla’s investment became known, Bitcoin surged by almost 10% to what was then an all-time high of $44,790. 

Musk’s impact on the crypto market is well-documented; when the Tesla CEO updated his Twitter bio to #Bitcoin, the Blockchain Research Lab found that Bitcoin’s price increased by over 18% as a result.