Tesla has written off 170 million dollars (166 million euros) in value on bitcoins that the company owns in the first half of this year. This is evident from documents that the American manufacturer of electric vehicles has submitted to the SEC.
The company reported last week that it had put a write-down in its books when it published its quarterly figures because of the lower bitcoin price. But the automaker had not yet said what amount it is.
It now appears that it concerns a write-off of 170 million dollars. This is because the largest crypto coin in the world has already fallen about 50 percent in value this year. Under the leadership of CEO Elon Musk, the richest person on earth and a strong supporter of cryptocurrencies, Tesla has invested heavily in bitcoin in the past.
In February last year, Tesla revealed that it had bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoins. At the end of last year, the value of this was about 2 billion dollars, but the price of the digital currency has fallen sharply.
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