Tesla’s $1.5B Bitcoin buy throws the cat amongst institutional pigeons

Elon Musk is either the hero or the villian of the year after Tesla’s Bitcoin purchase polarized opinion among institutional investors.

Not all analysts are convinced that Tesla’s recent acquisition of $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin (BTC) will prove to be as beneficial for the tech giant as it was for the BTC coin price.

Head of equity strategy at Saxo Bank, Peter Garnry, wrote in a research note that Elon Musk had exposed Tesla and its investors to “immense risk”, as reported by Reuters on Feb. 11.

“Elon Musk has exposed Tesla to immense mark-to-market risk,” wrote Garnry, adding that the main concern for investors was valuing Bitcoin’s worth over the long term, given the intense market volatility it’s been subject to since its creation.

Elsewhere, former Goldman Sachs executive Gary Black announced to Twitter followers on Feb. 8 that he had closed out positions held in Tesla Inc ($TSLA), quoting the firm’s “more risky capital allocation” among his reasons.

The value of Bitcoin increased 20% in the 24 hours immediately after news broke concerning Tesla’s $1.5 billion acquisition, sparking a renewed surge in the cryptocurrency market resulting in new all-time highs for Bitcoin, Ether (ETH) and many others. Meanwhile, the value of Tesla stock dropped 7.5% over the course of the subsequent trading days.

Reported concurrently was the response by Brett Winton, director of research at ARK Invest, which allocates 8.75% of its portfolio to Tesla stock, who said the investment represented an “appropriate use of cash,” adding, “We are comfortable with the way in which we are forecasting the positions we are putting our clients in front of.”

The CEO of Grayscale, Michael Sonnenshein, recently suggested that Elon Musk’s public vindication of Bitcoin would spark a “race” to invest by institutional buyers and other tech “visionaries”. Sonnenshein said Grayscale, which has a vested interest in the matter at hand, had witnessed stronger inflows moving into 2021 than were recorded during the record-breaking year of 2020.