Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, has once again shared his opinion on cryptocurrencies on Twitter, assuring that he “will not sell” his holdings in Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin.
Musk made the comments in a Twitter thread in which he discussed inflation. “Tesla [and] SpaceX are seeing significant recent inflationary pressure in commodities [and] logistics,” Musk wrote after asking his audience for his opinion on the “likely rate of inflation [in] the next few years. “
Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy and a well-known Bitcoin bull, was one of the most accounts who responded to Musk. Naturally, he expects the flight from “cash, debt, [and] value stocks” into his preferred asset, Bitcoin, “to intensify.”
To this, Musk agreed in part, adding that “it’s generally better to own physical things like a house or stock in companies that you think make good products than dollars when inflation is high,” and stating that he has no intention of selling their cryptocurrency holdings.
MicroStrategy and Tesla are perhaps the largest companies that have Bitcoin on their balance sheets.
Although Saylor’s firm has been much more aggressive in its purchases, amassing billions of dollars in the asset over the past few years, Tesla also invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin last February. The electric car maker even went so far as to accept Bitcoin as a form of payment (until it did a U-turn soon after, citing environmental concerns around Bitcoin).
However, Musk has been more diverse in his exploration of cryptocurrencies, going so far as to become the “Godfather” of Dogecoin. The Tesla CEO’s tweets about Dogecoin have also spurred the meme coin into impressive, if not controversial, price hikes.
The latest tweet mentioning Dogecoin has also had a similar effect. DOGE jumped from $0.111 to $0.119, an increase of 7%, according to data pulled from CoinMarketCap. Since then, the top dog coin has lost some of those gains and is trading at $0.115.
As for fighting inflation, many investors in traditional markets are fighting for safety. However, it remains to be seen whether cryptocurrencies become a financial safe haven.
Elon Musk, cryptocurrencies and inflation
Although Musk may be the only corporate CEO to suggest holding Dogecoin to remedy rising prices, companies around the world are keeping a close eye on rising inflation.
The consumer price index (CPI), a basket of basic goods ranging from vehicles and milk to cereals and clothing, hit a 40-year high last week, according to a report from the US Department of Labor. .
Various global sanctions have put a siege on Russia’s finances, but these restrictions have also caused a serious spike in the price of raw materials and gasoline.
Sanctions and rising inflation have also been put forward as the precise problems that deflationary assets like Bitcoin aim to solve. Transactions on the Bitcoin network cannot be blocked by third parties, and Bitcoin’s limited supply of 21 million means there is a limited supply that will always exist.
However, even amidst its proselytizing advantages, Bitcoin has traded sideways, hovering between $44,000 and $39,000 since early January.