SpaceX, the spacecraft engineering company owned by Elon Musk, sold all its holdings in Bitcoin, a Wall Street Journal report revealed, leading to a sharp sell-off late on Thursday and into early Friday trading.
The world's largest cryptocurrency dropped below US$25,000 after the sale was revealed, causing a ripple effect across the crypto community and leading to declines in Bitcoin-related stocks like Coinbase, Marathon Digital and Riot Platforms.
Having completely divested its Bitcoin holdings after two consecutive years of markdowns in the value of its holdings, Space X followed in the footsteps of Musk’s Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) which, according to its 2022 third-quarter update, sold approximately 75% of its initial $1.5 billion investment.
"SpaceX wrote down the value of Bitcoin it owns by a total of $373 million last year and in 2021 and has sold the cryptocurrency," the Wall Street Journal said.
Although the exact quantity of Bitcoin sold remains undisclosed, financial records saw SpaceX's expenses - which also accounts for property acquisition, equipment, and R&D - total US$5.2 billion in 2022.
In 2021, Elon Musk publicly disclosed SpaceX's Bitcoin ownership, coinciding with Tesla's announcement of its plan to acquire $1.5 billion worth of the cryptocurrency, significantly boosting Bitcoin's value to an all-time high of over $43,000.
On Friday, Bitcoin managed to recover some of its losses from the SpaceX-led dip and is currently trading a little under US$26,500.