Elon Musk says Tesla not selling bitcoin despite huge crypto crash

Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, and more digital currencies have dramatically dropped in price

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, has tweeted that the car company will not be selling any of its cryptocurrency, despite the market currently crashing

The news comes as bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, and more digital currencies have dramatically dropped in price following new regulation from China.

The CEO tweeted that Tesla has “diamond hands”, using emoji to signify the slang term for crypto-holders that resolutely refuse to sell their holdings in spite of an uncertain market.

Follow the latest on the crypto market crash with our bitcoin live blog here

Mr Musk’s tweet comes as the cryptocurrency market plunged by one third. Chinese state-backed organisations – including the China Banking Association – had issued a warning that digital currencies are not “real”, and that they “should not and cannot be used as currency in the market”.

As a result bitcoin, the best known cryptocurrency, saw its price fall by 25 per cent - approximately $10,000 - in the last few hours. Dogecoin dropped 30 per cent, and Cardano fell more than 25 per cent.

More than $250 billion of cryptocurrency has been traded over the last 24 hours, market trackers indicate, as investors seek to seek the digital currency and recoup some losses.

This is proving difficult for some, however, as Coinbase, Binance and other major cryptocurrency exchanges went down amid the price crash, while market tracking websites like Coindesk and CoinMarketCap struggling to load.

Mr Musk had recently caused a smaller cryptocurrency crash after he announced that his electric car company would not be accepting payment in cryptocurrency, causing a smaller crash in the market.

The news came mere months after he had encouraged people to purchase vehicles with bitcoin, and said that he would launch a Doge-1 satellite to put the “first crypto in space” and the “first meme in space”.

The Independent has reached out to Mr Musk via Twitter for comment.

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