Bitcoin flash crashed to about $25.3k in an unexpected downturn triggering severe liquidations for traders. The bloodbath follows Evergrande’s bankruptcy, but it’s the SpaceX write-down that has taken center stage.
Certain documents have emerged that reportedly provided a rare insight into the financials of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, revealing that the space company wrote down the value of its Bitcoin holdings by a combined total of $373 million in 2021 and 2022.
This information was conveyed by Wall Street Journal in a report published on Thursday and has been widely attributed to the cause of the sudden sell-off in the crypto market after an extended period of extremely low volatility.
WSJ reportedly had access to documents related to SpaceX’s financials, which revealed approximately $5.2 billion in overall expenditures for 2022. Additionally, the documents showed expenditures of $5.4 billion in both 2021 and 2022, attributed to the acquisition of assets, equipment, and research and development expenses.
The news agency stated,
“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.”
Whether SpaceX has sold its Bitcoin stash remains a claim lacking concrete evidence since the company is private. Despite Musk acknowledging that the spacecraft manufacturer owned Bitcoin back in 2021, he hasn’t divulged much information on the matter.
Moreover, write-down essentially refers to the reduction in the book value of an asset when its fair market value (FMV) has dropped below the carrying book value.
Neither SpaceX nor Musk have commented on the report as of press time. Furthermore, the WSJ report did not clarify the exact timing of the Bitcoin sale.
Tesla, for one, sold more than 30,000 BTC during the second quarter of 2022, generating $936 million. This amounted to about 75% of the company’s initial BTC holdings, which were valued at $1.5 billion.
According to the second-quarter 2023 earnings report, the American automotive giant had liquidated all of its Bitcoin holdings except for those valued at approximately $184 million.