![](\"https:\/\/cryptoglobe.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com\/2022\/07\/BTCUSD_2022-07-22_11-33-28-1280x415.png\")
<\/p>\nAt 9:23 UTC on Friday (July 22), the Bitcoin ($BTC) price hit $23,500, and seems on its way to $24,000.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Currently (as of 10:33 UTC on July 22), Bitcoin is trading around $23,502, up 2.45% in the past 24-hour period. Interestingly, the $BTC price has increased by 13.21% since July 17 when Bitcoin\u2019s latest rally started.<\/p>\n
And since June 13, when crypto lender Celsius\u00a0announced\u00a0on its blog that due to \u201cextreme market conditions\u201d it was \u201cpausing all withdrawals, Swap, and transfers between accounts\u201d, $BTC has gone from $22,450 to $23,502, which is a gain of 4.68%.<\/p>\n
Bitcoin\u2019s price action led crypto analyst and educator Koroush Khaneghah (who goes by the pseudonym \u201cKourosh AK\u201d on Twitter) to tell his over 310K Twitter followers:<\/p>\n
As you probably already know, on Wednesday (July 20), Tesla CEO\u00a0Elon Musk\u00a0\u2014 who is the world\u2019s richest person (with an estimated net worth of $235.8 billion as of 20 July 2021)\u00a0according to Forbes\u00a0\u2014 explained why his company decided to sell 75% of its Bitcoin holdings in Q2 2022.<\/p>\n
According to Seeking Alpha\u2019s\u00a0transcript\u00a0of Tesla\u2019s Q2 2022 Earnings Conference Call, Musk and Tesla CFO Zachary Kirkhorn talked about Tesla\u2019s cryptocurrency sales in the quarter.<\/p>\n
Kirkhorn said:<\/p>\n
\u201cWithin operating expenses, Boston and Berlin-related startup costs have wound down as these factories have moved into production and their costs are now reflected in automotive COGS. Additionally, we converted a majority of our Bitcoin holdings to Fiat for a realized gain, offset by impairment charges on the remainder of our holdings, netting a $106 million cost to the P&L included within restructuring and other. We also incurred restructuring charges related to targeted staffing reductions.<\/em>\u201c<\/p>\n Musk then added:<\/p>\n \u201cYes, actually, it should be mentioned that 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, given the uncertainty of the COVID lockdowns in China. We are certainly open to increasing our Bitcoin holdings in future. So this should not be taken as some verdict on Bitcoin. It\u2019s just that we were concerned about overall liquidity for the company given COVID shutdowns in China. And we have not sold any of our Dogecoin.<\/em>\u201c<\/p>\n Although this disappointing news initially resulted in a small dip in the price of Bitcoin, the mood in the crypto market since then seems to have improved quite a bit.<\/p>\n And yesterday, TRON Founder Justin Sun said that TRON DAO would be buying the same amount of bitcoins that were sold by Tesla in Q2 2022:<\/p>\n Another bullish comment from yesterday came from Blockstream Co-Founder and CEO Adam Back, who said that \u201cBitcoin is displacing gold over time.\u201d<\/p>\nImage Credit<\/h2>\n