SpaceX provoked the fall of the bitcoin cryptocurrency

on August 17, cryptocurrency traders and investors are experiencing a shock — the flagship crypto asset dropped below $ 25,000. Bitcoin fell to a two-month low, in part because of Elon Musk — on Thursday evening it became known that SpaceX had sold its BTC stocks. The market reacted instantly, with BTC falling to $ 24,711, followed by shares in Coinbase, Marathon Digital, and Riot Platforms.

Journalists of The Wall Street Journal note: SpaceX got rid of its BTC assets after reducing their value for two years in a row. «SpaceX has reduced the value of the bitcoins it owns by a total of $ 373 million and sold the cryptocurrency,» the report says.

Although the exact number of bitcoins sold was not disclosed, financial documents show significant spending by SpaceX: approximately $ 5.2 billion in 2022, which covered the purchase of real estate, equipment, and research and development costs.

It is noteworthy that in 2021, Elon Musk made a public statement that SpaceX owns a certain amount of bitcoin, which coincided with Tesla’s announcement of its intention to purchase $ 1.5 billion worth of digital gold. As a reminder, this maneuver significantly raised BTC to a record high of more than $ 43,000. It should be added that in the second quarter of 2023, Tesla’s financial statements showed BTC worth $ 184 million. At that time, Musk’s company sold 75% of all the cryptocurrency it owned.

Despite the media frenzy around the sale of BTC by SpaceX, the real impetus for the collapse of the digital flagship was related to the futures market. Crypto industry players witnessed the largest cascade of futures liquidations since the problems with the FTX crypto exchange. According to Coinglass, in less than a day, the volume of liquidation of long BTC positions amounted to a staggering $ 386.68 million.