With assets in the cryptocurrency market becoming more widespread and increasingly entering the mainstream, rumors have arisen that electric car manufacturer Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) is about to integrate Bitcoin (BTC) and Dogecoin (DOGE) as payment options.
As it happens, the crypto community witnessed increased speculation that Tesla might have added Bitcoin and Dogecoin to its payment source code, which was not as farfetched considering that Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk is an avid supporter of cryptocurrencies, and Bitcoin was previously one of the considered payment options.
Simple misunderstanding?
However, upon closer inspection, it became clear that Bitcoin and Dogecoin were already present in the source code as early as January 2023 and that the Tesla team simply did not remove this code when they discontinued the option to pay with Bitcoin, according to the data retrieved from the Internet Archive.
It is also worth mentioning that, coinciding with the rumors, the price of Bitcoin recorded an increase of 1.10% in the last 24 hours, whereas Dogecoin gained 4.24% during the same period, according to the cryptocurrencies’ most recent charts on July 20.
Tesla and crypto
Meanwhile, crypto holdings in Tesla’s balance sheet have remained steady, standing at $184 million, although in a bit of stagnation due to the accounting rules that prohibit recording unrealized gains on crypto, which resulted in its Bitcoin holdings remaining flat despite the 7% price increase during the second quarter.
Interestingly, in February 2021, Tesla had purchased $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin, even announcing plans to support it as a payment option, but Musk later reversed the decision on account of environmental concerns, after which the company sold about 75% of its Bitcoin holdings in the second quarter of 2022, which Musk justified with concerns regarding the overall liquidity of the company.
