Musk and Bitcoin ??

Greetings crunchers!

Elon Musk liquidated 75% of his bitcoin holdings. The news comes as a bit of a surprise, especially since less than two weeks ago Musk said that he's "neither here nor there" on cryptocurrencies.

So what could have prompted the Tesla CEO to sell off such a large chunk of his bitcoin stash? According to some industry insiders, cash is king right now and Musk is simply playing the market. We'll just have to wait and see how this all pans out…

In the meantime, let's take a look at today's top headlines.

YESTERDAY'S MARKET MOVES

SOME FAMILIAR FINTECH & CRYPTO STOCKS

Note: The variance captures DoD movement in the price

WHAT’S NEW IN FINTECH?

• Has the BNPL slump reached the MENA region? Hosam Arab, founder and CEO of Tabby reportedly said that BNPL has been “grossly overhyped.”

• BEE4, a Brazil-based fintech company, plans to launch the first local marketplace of tokenized stocks in the next few weeks, replicating the structure of a stock exchange.

• Payments giant Visa Inc. is in talks to invest in the fintech startup Airwallex.

• Startups in the MENA region raised $324 million in June 2022, and agritech, proptech, and fintech were the hottest sector, together representing 75.6% of the deal activity raised.

Elon Musk is selling 75% of Tesla's bitcoin holdings

Although Tesla CEO Elon Musk was one of the first major CEOs to publicly endorse bitcoin, the electric car maker has since dumped three quarters of its holdings a year after claiming that bitcoin is a “long-term potential.”

Tesla stated that it has "converted about 75% of our Bitcoin acquisitions into fiat cash" in its second-quarter earnings report.

Investing $1.5 billion in bitcoin at the beginning of last year, Tesla was betting on the "long-term potential" of the digital currency.?

“As of the end of Q2, we have converted approximately 75% of our Bitcoin purchases into fiat currency,”?

Tesla stated that those sales added $936 million in cash to its balance sheet.

It’s a rapid retreat for Tesla and CEO Elon Musk, who was a heavy crypto booster during last year’s runup, frequently tweeting about various digital currencies.

Analyst Brian Johnson at Barclays estimated earlier this week that Tesla would see a $460 million bitcoin-related impairment given the selloff.

“The reason we sold a bunch of our bitcoin holdings was that we were uncertain as to when the Covid lockdowns in China would alleviate so it was important for us to maximize our cash position,”?

“This should be not taken as some verdict on bitcoin,” Musk said in an earnings call on Wednesday, adding that Tesla is open to increasing its crypto holdings in the future.

Bitcoin has fallen by more than 50% to $20,000 this year, primarily because of the Fed's decision to withdraw liquidity to combat high inflation.

The liquidity exodus has exposed faulty risk management practices in the crypto universe, forcing many trading firms and miners – those responsible for minting coins – to offload their holdings to stay solvent.?

According to this article, Founder of Tron, Justin Sun, says we should consider this great news because:?

• Market no longer needs to worry about Tesla selling BTC which has been haunting us for a long time.
• Tesla selling nearly $1 billion worth of BTC shows the liquidity of Bitcoin to all big corps.
• Tesla completing Bitcoin transactions shows good precedence for all enterprises holding? BTC. We believe more big corps will buy in the future. Kudos to Elon Musk!

It will be interesting to see if Musk's decision has any long-term effects on the company's share value or future plans. In the meantime, we'll just have to watch and wait.

What do you think about Elon Musk selling off Tesla's Bitcoin holdings? Let me know in the comments below!

? QUICK INVESTMENT ROUNDS

• Palestine-based fashion marketplace Modesta has raised a six-figure Seed round led by 500 Startups.

• London-based Atlantic Money has just secured an additional €2.9 million as it launches its money transfer service and plans international expansion.

• Australian paytech mx51 has raised around $22 million in a Series B round led by an undisclosed global fintech investor.

• California-based one-click checkout fintech Deuna has raised $30 million in a Series A funding round led by Activant Capital.

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?? REPORT OF THE DAY

Women in Fintech: As Leaders and Users

While digital financial services have made access to finance easier, faster, and less costly, helping to broaden digital financial inclusion, its impact on gender gaps varies across countries. Moreover, women leaders in the fintech industry, although growing, remain scarce. This report explores the interaction between ‘women’ and ‘fintech’ by examining the role of women leaders on firm-level performance in the fintech industry, and the determinants of gender gaps in the usage of digital services to better understand the cross-country differences. Results indicate that greater gender diversity in the executive board is associated with better performance of fintech firms. Download the report here.

? BEFORE YOU GO…

• Metaverse: Dubai's crown prince Sheikh Hamdan has announced The Dubai Metaverse Strategy where the Emirates is looking to use the metaverse to create 40,000 virtual jobs while adding $4 billion to its economy over the next five years.

• Metaverse: Fitness lifestyle media company Outside Magazine is creating Outerverse, an "anti-metaverse" platform that gives users an incentive to engage in outdoor activities using NFTs and other rewards.

• NFTs: Car manufacturer KIA has launched an NFT-based campaign in the USA called "Built for Whoever You Are" where viewers will be able to obtain one of the items from their NFT collection by scanning a QR code from the commercial.

• Crypto: Metaverse cryptocurrencies are on the rise giving massive returns to their investors this year. Check out this list of top 10 metaverse cryptocurrencies that are expected to outperform Bitcoin this year.

?? THE LATEST ON COUCHONOMICS

Watch Episode 18 with Tammer Qaddumi, Founding Partner at VentureSouq, a MENA based Venture Capital firm and one of the best guys to chat about most things Fintech. The episode is available on Youtube (Just search for Couchonomics with Arjun Singh) and/or on all your favorite podcast streaming channels such as Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Deezer or go to www.couchonomics.com and click on the podcast link

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