Tesla famously invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin in February 2021, and while the current crypto market crash has left that outlay looking even more reckless than some observers labelled it at the time, should the notoriously volatile currency bounce back and even stabilize, the electric car producer will again be happily in the driving seat as one of the leading public companies when it comes to Bitcoin ownership.
The extent to which Tesla is banking on Bitcoin is still no where near that of MicroStrategy, however. As this infographic using figures from the Statista Digital Economy Compass 2022 illustrates, the U.S. business intelligence firm most recently reported 129,218 of the cryptocurrency on its balance sheet - far ahead of Tesla's 43,200. All of the other companies on this ranking are directly involved in the business of crypto in some form. Whether these investments will pay off in the long-term, only time will tell. In the short- to medium-term, expect the usual swings towards boom and bust and back again.
