Elon Musk implies Tesla could dump its bitcoin holdings

Musk replied cryptically: “Indeed.”

That was enough to push bitcoin BTCUSD, +4.52% even lower. The leading cryptocurrency by market cap finished the trading day down about 8%, around $44,400, according to Coindesk data. While bitcoin and other cryptos are traded 24 hours a day, the daily session resets at 5 p.m. Eastern; bitcoin prices gained in the new session Sunday evening. Bitcoin is down about 18% over the past five days, and 27% over the past month, though is still up 53% year to date.

Ethereum ETHUSD, +6.41% sank about 11% on Sunday, and Ripple XRPUSD, +5.90% fell around 8%.

Crypto prices — especially the prices of bitcoin and dogecoin — have swung wildly over the past week following comments by Musk, starting with his “Saturday Night Live” appearance.

Musk’s comment Sunday came days after he announced Tesla would no longer accept bitcoin as payment for it cars, citing the negative environmental effects caused by the high energy usage that bitcoin mining takes. He later tweeted that dogecoin is a “potentially promising” alternative, sending its prices soaring.

Dogecoin DOGEUSD, +3.97%, meanwhile, slipped Sunday to about 48 cents, still up about 3% over the past five trading sessions.

Tesla TSLA, +3.16% bought about $1.5 billion in bitcoin earlier this year. In its first-quarter earnings report last month, Tesla said it sold about $101 million — 10% of its bitcoin holdings — which helped boost its bottom line.