The famous billionaire and CEO of Tesla has just invested heavily in cryptocurrency. Elon Musk also claimed that it will soon be possible to buy a Tesla in bitcoins. Announcements, deeply buried in the company's 2020 annual report, which have led to a 20% increase in the world's most owned cryptocurrency: a bitcoin is now worth nearly 40,000 euros.
The news immediately sparked large transactions on cryptocurrency exchange platforms such as Coinbase, Gemini and Binance, whose servers temporarily encountered some technical difficulties in the face of the increased load. Discussions were also quite lively on Reddit, while the GameStop affair - concerning a group of Internet users gathered via the Wall Street Bets forum, having managed to artificially boost the stock prices of several companies - is still fresh ...
Elon Musk has always been interested in cryptocurrencies and it is clear that he has a real influence in the matter: a few tweets from him evoking "the future currency of the planet", including a video in which we see a Shiba Inu fly to the moon in a spaceship, propelled the Dogecoin - a coin bearing the image of a Shiba Inu, created from the meme associated with this dog, considered a joke - in the top 10 virtual currencies !
The "Elon Musk" effect still at work
And this influence is not new. To believe that for his followers, everything Elon Musk says necessarily carries a hidden meaning. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) - the US federal body for regulating and supervising financial markets - has often criticized Tesla CEO for using Twitter to discuss his company's plans, for "false and misleading tweets" », Which allowed to inflate the value of the shares; the legal battle resulted in Musk being fined $ 20 million and his resignation as chairman of the board.
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Over the past year, Elon Musk briefly became the richest person in the world, while Tesla shares jumped nearly 500%. " If lesser mortals had made the decision to put part of their balance sheet inbitcoins, je ne pense pas que cela aurait été pris au sérieux. Mais lorsque l’homme le plus riche du monde le fait, tout le monde doit y jeter un coup d’œil », constate Thomas Hayes, membre directeur de Great Hill Capital LLC à New York. Le fait est qu’à chaque fois que l’homme d’affaires évoque un actif ou une société sur son compte Twitter, son prix s’envole comme par magie ! Encore une fois, ses derniers tweets ont produit leur effet… Les actions de Tesla ont augmenté de 1,3% lundi, le 8 février.
The icing on the cake: she says she is ready to accept the purchase of her vehicles in cryptocurrency: “ We plan to start accepting bitcoin as a method of payment for our products in the near future, subject to applicable laws and initially on a limited basis, which we may or may not liquidate upon receipt, ”the company said. But due to the unpredictable and highly volatile nature of bitcoin, the number of units required to buy a Tesla could vary wildly in just 24 hours! It is therefore an unconventional method of payment that is looming on the horizon ...
A future safe haven for companies?
Central banks remain skeptical of digital currencies, but analysts believe that the more possible uses of bitcoin in the real world, the more attractive it will prove to be as a safe haven (which makes perfect sense …). After the disclosure of Tesla's intentions, the cryptocurrency reached $ 47,565 (or € 39,360). Since March 2020, its value has only climbed: it is now up by 1135%, in part thanks to the interest of institutional investors.
For several years, bitcoin was used mainly as a currency of exchange by criminal networks on the dark net (gambling, purchase of illicit substances and pirated data, etc.). Today, things have changed ; illegal activities continue, but they have become a minority. Bitcoin is not yet well established in retail, but is used in a lot of very legitimate trade. Mohamed El-Erian, Chief Economic Advisor to Allianz, confirms the trend: “ The case for bitcoin is evolving. Previously, its purchase was associated with something negative, but suddenly there are positive reasons to buy it , and that's why bitcoin reachesnew heights ”.
Note that Tesla is not the first big company to add bitcoins to its treasury. Square, the payments company founded by Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, has invested $ 50 million in bitcoin , in October 2020; an amount which represents approximately 1% of the assets of the company. MicroStrategy, a business intelligence software company, began buying its first bitcoins last year in August; at the time it invested $ 250 million. Today, MicroStrategy holds some 71,079 bitcoins at an average purchase price of $ 16,109, for a total value of $ 2.6 billion; this represents almost 40% of the company's market capitalization. Note also that PayPal authorized cryptocurrency exchanges in November.
According to Mitch Steves, analyst at RBC Capital Markets, Apple may well be the next big company to enter the cryptocurrency market, both by allowing bitcoin to be traded on its Apple Wallet service and by investing a portion of its own. reservations. And some experts predict a rapid spread of the phenomenon: " If this becomes a trend in corporate cash flow, staying away will only get more expensive over time, " said Maya Zehavi, blockchain consultant