Sygnia Chief Executive Officer Magda Wierzycka accused Tesla’s big boss Elon Musk of manipulating bitcoin price and has called on the United States Securities and Exchange Commission to do appropriate actions regarding it.
“What we have seen with bitcoin is price manipulation by one very powerful and influential individual,” said the Sygnia top honcho on Twitter, obviously taking a swipe at the tech billionaire for his famous 180-degree turn from the crypto through his electric car company.
Wierzycka said Musk only pumped the price of the leading cryptocurrency to sell a “big part of his exposure at the peak,” referring to the move of Tesla to sell part of its bitcoin holdings.
Elon Musk responds
Also using his Twitter account, the self-proclaimed “Dogefather” responded to the accusations hurled towards him by his fellow CEO.
“This is inaccurate. Tesla only sold ~10% of holdings to confirm BTC could be liquidated easily without moving market,” Musk countered.
Speaking about the possibility of Tesla opening its doors again for bitcoin payments, Musk said when there’s confirmation of reasonable (~50%) clean energy usage by miners with positive future trend, Tesla will resume allowing bitcoin transactions.
Tesla, Musk and bitcoin
Last April, Musk confirmed Tesla sold part of its crypto holdings in order to prove the asset’s liquidity. A month earlier, he confirmed that the car company spent $1.5 billion to purchase bitcoin that will be added to its balance sheet.
At the same time, Musk said Tesla will begin accepting the cryptocurrency as payment for its vehicles.
But such development was short-lived as Musk suddenly expressed and cited concerns about bitcoin’s energy usage, culminating in a Twitter post saying Tesla will no longer accept it as payment.
That triggered a series of downtrends for bitcoin, which fell to as low as $30,000, before making a slow recovery to now trade at just above $39,000.
Image courtesy of Cointelegraph News/YouTube