Billionaire investor and Tesla CEO, Elon Musk wants to know whether large Bitcoin transactions can be done without significantly moving the market.
In a tweet today, Musk queried Michael Saylor, CEO of Microstrategy, if such large transactions were possible. Saylor had suggested in an earlier tweet that Musk follows his footsteps to convert his company’s dollar cash reserves into Bitcoin.
Are such large transactions even possible?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 20, 2020
Saylor told Musk that he has purchased over $1.3 billion in #BTC in past months & would be happy to share his playbook with the billionaire CEO.
Yes. I have purchased over $1.3 billion in #BTC in past months & would be happy to share my playbook with you offline – from one rocket scientist to another.
— Michael Saylor (@michael_saylor) December 20, 2020
It appears Musk isn’t aware of the ground-breaking moves by MicroStrategy since the company’s first Bitcoin purchase in August earlier this year. MicroStrategy to date has purchased $425 million worth of Bitcoin and recently disclosed plans to add another $550 million to its position.
The huge purchases, reportedly being handled by Coinbase, surprisingly didn’t seem to affect Bitcoin’s price bringing us back to Musks question at the onset.
How?
According to Coinbase, MicroStrategy employed it to work on this purchase due to its advanced market tools, including smart order routing, trading algorithms, and white-glove service.
Before this transaction was conducted, the exchange took some steps to reduce the colossal purchase’s impact on the market. First, it conducted a test trade, then utilized a time-weighted average price algorithm.
Afterwards, Coinbase reported that it broke down the purchase into smaller divisions and traded them across different trading venues. By following these steps, the exchange minimized the impact of the trade on the market and saved up to $4.25 million for MicroStrategy.
Will Tesla and Elon Musk Buy Bitcoin?
Saylor had suggested that if Musk bought BTC for Tesla, then most S&P 500 companies would follow suit, and make Tesla’s initial purchase worthwhile.
If you want to do your shareholders a $100 billion favor, convert the $TSLA balance sheet from USD to #BTC. Other firms on the S&P 500 would follow your lead & in time it would grow to become a $1 trillion favor.
— Michael Saylor (@michael_saylor) December 20, 2020
Time will now tell whether Musk will follow Saylor’s advice and how soon until the world’s largest corporations begin to allocate or convert their cash reserves to Bitcoin.
