After J.K. Rowling — the billionaire author of the “Harry Potter” book series asked Crypto Twitter to explain to her what Bitcoin is — Elon Musk joined in on the fun, publicly commenting on the leading cryptocurrency for the fourth time in a matter of months.
Elon Musk: I Only Own 0.25 Bitcoin
On Friday, Rowling stated that she thinks Bitcoin is a whole bunch of “blah blah blah.”
Musk replied with “pretty much,” but added that he thinks the “massive currency issuance” by governments and central banks is making Bitcoin “look solid in comparison.”
Pretty much, although massive currency issuance by govt central banks is making Bitcoin Internet 
money look solid by comparison
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 15, 2020
His point holds merit.
As observed by Bitcoin programmer Jimmy Song, the stock of U.S. dollars (M2) has increased by $2.3 trillion within the span of three months — likely the fastest growth of fiat money ever.
Simultaneously, the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet has rocketed to fresh all-time highs above $6.9 trillion, accentuating the value of an asset that is scarce and cannot be manipulated by a central authority.
Musk’s latest comment aside, he asserted that he still only owns 0.25 Bitcoin that he got as a gift from a friend, worth approximately $2,250 as of the time of this article’s writing.
Crypto Community Still Celebrates Musk’s Comment
While Musk is far from a committed Bitcoiner as some hoped he would become, his comment about the relative solidity of Bitcoin compared to fiat currencies has been celebrated by the community.
With over 34 million followers, Musk’s latest jab about Bitcoin has already managed to gather 5,000 likes, 1,200 retweets, and 450 comments — most of which are from cryptocurrency investors cheering the Tesla CEO on.
This enthusiasm for good reason: he may not be an investor, but he’s somewhat optimistic about cryptocurrencies as a whole.
In an early 2019 episode of ARK Invest’s podcast, Musk told investor Cathie Wood that he thinks Bitcoin’s structure is “quite brilliant,” before adding that Ethereum and “maybe some of the others” have merit too.
Per previous reports from NewsBTC, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO added that BTC is interesting as it enables consumers to bypass currency controls in nations embroiled in financial and political conflict:
“Yeah. It bypasses currency controls. Yeah. Paper money is going away, and crypto is a far better way to transfer value than pieces of paper, that’s for sure”
He added in another podcast that he acknowledges Bitcoin has the ability to enable illegal (but not necessarily immoral) transactions.
Whether or not his interest in Bitcoin as a theory translates to him entering the space as an investor or an entrepreneur, though, remains to be seen.
But there’s an image on the web of him holding a book about Bitcoin, leading many in the space to believe that he’s dabbling in cryptocurrency behind closed doors.
Photo by SpaceX on Unsplash