Tesla's $1.5 billion bitcoin investment didn't just make headlines. According to a Times of London report, it has also made the company more profitable than its car sales last year, Report says.
On Friday, the cryptocurrency smashed through the $55,000 level, bringing its market cap above $1 trillion. It means if Tesla owns the same amount of Bitcoin as it did on January 31, it made a paper profit of about $930 million since January. That's almost 30% more than its $721 million revenue from electric vehicles, per the report.
Bitcoin's historic rally has been a source of debate across the investing community, with many concerned that its 546% year-on-year gains (according to CoinDesk data) might have created a bubble and UBS flagging that the asset could be 'worthless.'
However, Tesla's CEO, Elon Musk, defended the investment. "Having some Bitcoin, which is simply a less dumb form of liquidity than cash, is adventurous enough for an S&P500 company," Musk tweeted on Thursday, responding to a Bloomberg interview with Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao.
Tesla's original bitcoin investment was disclosed in its annual 10-k filing on February 8, showing that it bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin in January. According to a CNBC report, the company also announced that it plans to begin accepting cryptocurrency as a payment form soon.
Tesla shares rose 2% on the news, with bitcoin also hitting then record highs of $44,795.20.