Binance’s CZ Downplays Impact of Tesla’s Bulk Bitcoin Sell-Off

Tesla recently announced its Q2 2022 earnings report, where it revealed that it had sold 75 percent of its Bitcoin holdings and while this was negative news for the market, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao believes that Tesla’s Bitcoin sell-off doesn’t mean much for the asset claiming that its holdings were “a drop in the ocean.” Zhao has estimated that up to $100 billion (roughly Rs. 8,00,148 crore) worth of Bitcoin gets traded every day, given that Tesla has sold less than $1 billion (roughly Rs 8,001 crore) worth of BTC makes the amount appear trivial in volume.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk dismissed crypto as a “sideshow” during a conference call, but he also clarified that the recent sale was not a “verdict” on Bitcoin. The entrepreneur did not rule out adding to his company’s existing cryptocurrency position in the future despite his climate-related concerns.

In a separate interview with Fox Business, Zhao mentions that people shouldn’t read too deeply into Tesla CEO and crypto advocate Elon Musk cashing out of Bitcoin so heavily.

“He’s a smart guy but it doesn’t mean that he holds every valuable asset in the world. He probably doesn’t hold many other company stocks, many other valuable cryptocurrencies, etc.

Just because he buys and sells some Bitcoin doesn’t mean that because he buys Bitcoin it got better, or because he sold Bitcoin it became worse.”

While several users agreed with CZ’s words, Terra Research Forum’s FatMan had a different opinion. He wrote it is hard to know without accounting for fake volume and wash trading on exchanges with zero fees. “$1b volume traded on an exchange is quite different from $1b in real USD outflows.”

While it’s hard to debate on this topic, Bitcoin dropped in price as the Tesla Bitcoin sell-off news surfaced. Bitcoin that had crossed the $24,000 (roughly Rs. 19.2 lakh) level dropped to $23,169 (roughly Rs. 18.5 lakh) as the news came out. The market was showing signs of recovery after months of price drops.