Elon Musk has revealed that SpaceX has invested its cash reserves in bitcoin, following on from Tesla’s announcement earlier this year that it bought $1.5 billion of the cryptocurrency.
Speaking at The ₿ Word conference on Wednesday alongside Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Mr Musk also revealed that he personally owns a “significant” amount of bitcoin, as well as a smaller amount of Ethereum (ether) and dogecoin.
“The only thing I own of any significance beyond Tesla and SpaceX stock is bitcoin, and then some ethereum and dogecoin,” he said.
“If the price of bitcoin goes down, I lose money. I might pump but I don’t dump... I would like to see bitcoin succeed.”
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Mr Musk said he floated an idea to the SpaceX team of building a space heater that also functioned as a cryptocurrency miner.
“I had this idea that was kind of off the wall,” he says. “What if a space heater was also a bitcoin/ ethereum/ dogecoin miner.”
It would make sense, he claimed, to have the heater serve a function beyond simply generating heat.
The technology billionaire has proved divisive within the crypto community after his decision to allow bitcoin payments for Tesla vehicles contributed to a price rally that saw the cryptocurrency hit a new all-time high above $60,000 in April.
His subsequent announcement that crypto payments would be suspended due to environmental concerns of the bitcoin network coincided with a major price crash that saw btc lose more than half of its value.
Mr Musk said Tesla could soon begin accepting payments in bitcoin once the firm has done its “due diligence” in evaluating the actual impact of bitcoin on climate change.
“There appears to be a positive trend in the energy usage of bitcoin,” he said.
He added that Tesla will reopen crypto payments when renewable energy is “at or above 50 per cent and that there is a trend towards increasing that number”.
He also confirmed that he had no plans to sell bitcoin, either personally or through SpaceX and Tesla, despite the recent price slide.
He even hinted that negative interest rates in Europe could force Tesla to invest even more of its cash reserves in bitcoin.
Mr Musk also encouraged Mr Dorsey to begin accepting bitcoin payments from advertisers for Twitter. “Let’s do it,” Mr Dorsey responded.
