After stunning global markets with a $1.5 billion bitcoin purchase earlier this year, electric vehicle maker Tesla sold a portion of its crypto investment.

After adding bitcoin to its balance sheet in early 2021, electric vehicle maker Tesla sold a portion of its crypto assets worth $272 million. Such data are contained in the company's financial statements for the first quarter of 2021. The amount received from the sale of cryptocurrency is indicated in the section “proceeds from sales of digital assets”.

Tesla acquired bitcoins worth $1.5 billion in February 2021, according to a report filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The deal was made through the crypto exchange Coinbase, which went public on April 14 through a direct listing on Nasdaq. As a result of the sale, Tesla still owns $1.33 billion worth of bitcoins at the exchange rate as of February 8, 2021, when the purchase was made.

In March Tesla also announced that it would accept payments in bitcoins. The founder of the company, billionaire and richest man in the world, Elon Musk, said that Tesla will keep proceeds from these payments in the form of digital assets and not convert them to fiat.

During the conference call, Tesla CFO Zack Kirkhorn said that "Tesla is watching how the market develops and listening to what our customers are saying but thinking about it from a corporate treasury perspective, we've been quite pleased with how much liquidity there is in the Bitcoin market. [Tesla] believes, long term, in the value of Bitcoin, so it is our intent to hold what we have long-term and continue to accumulate Bitcoin from transactions from our customers as they purchase vehicles."