In its latest earnings report, Tesla disclosed it did not buy or sell any Bitcoins in the last quarter of 2022.

Reporting from Decrypt, Friday (27/1/2023), Tesla experienced an estimated USD 34 million in impairment costs as the value of Bitcoin holdings fell to $184 million from $218 million in the third quarter of 2022.

In the world of accounting, an impairment charge is a reduction in the value of an asset below its carrying amount or the cost of the asset. In the context of Tesla’s Bitcoin holdings, this means that although the company still has the same amount of BTC on its balance sheet, the market value of its deposits has fallen compared to the previous quarter.

Bitcoin was trading below $20,000 in late September 2022, before falling below $16,000 at the end of the year.

Tesla joined the ranks of leading cryptocurrency holding companies when it revealed it had invested $1.5 billion or so in Bitcoin in February 2021, pushing the price of BTC to new record highs at the time.

The company sold 10 percent of its Bitcoin holdings in Q1 2021 to prove Bitcoin liquidity as an alternative to keeping cash on the balance sheet, with its next significant sale coming in the second quarter of 2022 when Tesla revealed it had sold 75 percent of its Bitcoin holdings.