Tesla Likely Retains $780 Million in Bitcoin After Recent Wallet Transfers
Tesla is likely still holding its entire Bitcoin reserve valued at approximately $780 million, despite moving the funds to unidentified wallets on October 15, as reported by blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence.
Arkham stated in an October 22 post that the wallet transfers were simply a rotation of funds, with the 11,509 Bitcoin split across seven wallets, each containing between 1,100 and 2,200 BTC. Notably, the largest transfers went to wallets “1Fnhp” and “1LERL,” valued at $142.2 million and $128.1 million, respectively.
Initial fears of a potential market dump arose on social media following the transfers, but these wallets have remained inactive since then.
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The reason for the wallet movements remains unclear, but some speculate the funds could be moved to a custodian for securing a loan. Tesla currently relies on Coinbase Prime Custody for Bitcoin storage.
Details regarding Tesla’s Bitcoin strategy may emerge during the company’s upcoming third-quarter earnings call on October 23. If Arkham’s insights hold true, Tesla would remain the fourth-largest corporate Bitcoin holder, following MicroStrategy and Bitcoin miners Marathon Digital and Riot Platforms.
Tesla made its first Bitcoin purchase of $1.5 billion in February 2021 and briefly accepted Bitcoin for vehicle purchases in March of that year before reversing that decision shortly after.
Alexander Stefanov
Reporter at CoinsPress
Alex is Editor-in-Chief of Coinspress and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, with nearly a decade of experience covering financial markets - crypto first, then everything else. It started in 2016 with Bitcoin. Like most people at the time, he didn't fully understand it - so he kept digging. Blockchain, tokenomics, the projects, the cycles. That curiosity never stopped, and eventually pulled him into traditional markets too: equities, commodities, macro. Not because he left crypto behind, but because you can't properly understand one without the other. What drives him is straightforward: he wants to know why something is happening, not just that it's happening. Most market coverage stops at the headline - price up, price down, here's a chart. Alex finds that kind of reporting actively unhelpful. If you walk away from an article without understanding the mechanism behind the move, what did you actually learn? He holds a degree in Tourism from New Bulgarian University - not the most obvious path into financial markets, but markets have a way of pulling in people who are simply too curious to stay out. He has authored over 200 in-depth analyses and more than 10,000 articles across crypto and traditional finance. He still thinks every day in markets teaches him something new. That's probably why he hasn't stopped.
