According to its annual filing, the world’s largest electric vehicle maker, Tesla, held just under $2 billion worth of Bitcoin (BTC) as of December 31, 2021.
This comes following the announcement made back in February last year that the company had purchased $1.5 billion worth of BTC under a new policy to begin acquiring and holding digital assets.
Notably, the filing also confirmed that Tesla realized gains of $128 million on the Bitcoin investment a month after the announcement but continued to hold the rest of its BTC until the end of last year.
Elon Musk is no stranger to crypto and his tweets alone have moved markets. Bankless Times analyzed the influence of Elon Musk’s tweets and found that on average, prices increase by 58% directly after a crypto-related tweet.
It remains to be seen what Tesla does with its BTC holdings although as things stand, it is currently the second-largest known investor of Bitcoin after MicroStrategy.
According to data from Bitcoin Treasuries, Tesla and MicroStrategy own 43,200 and 125,000 BTC each, respectively.
Big Four Auditor KPMG Joins The Digital Asset Trend
Assets like Bitcoin are becoming more appealing to corporations looking to diversify their cash holdings in an inflationary environment.
Big Four auditor, KPMG’s Canadian operations recently joined the ranks by adding both Bitcoin and Ethereum to its corporate treasury.
According to Benjie Thomas, a managing partner at KPMG Canada, the decision to add Bitcoin and Ether to its balance sheet reflects the firm's opinion that “crypto-assets are a maturing asset class”.
He added that the move was made following a “rigorous risk assessment” by the governance committee after seeing other large financial institutions gaining exposure to the digital assets industry.
KPMG joins a growing list of companies to hold Bitcoin and if fears of inflation continue then this may become a more popular action to take.
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