The company said it purchased approximately 3,318 bitcoins, expanding on its October 2020 buy of 4,709. Square said it represents about 5% of the company’s total assets as of the end of 2020. Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla said that the company would accept Bitcoin as payment for cars in the United States, a move that is at odds with the company’s image as an environmentally friendly electric-car maker. Tesla will hold the digital currency, rather than convert payments to dollars, and handle the crypto transactions internally, Mr. Musk said.

Global economic factors that stemmed from Russia’s War in Ukraine negatively affected the price of Bitcoin. It further dropped to as low as $26,970 in May after the collapse of Terra-Luna and its sister stablecoin, UST, in addition to a shedding of tech stocks. On 18 June, Bitcoin dropped below $18,000, to trade at levels beneath its 2017 highs. In the aftermath of the collapse of FTX Bitcoin’s price has dropped furthermore.