Tesla lost more than $140 million betting on bitcoin last year. The electric car maker incurred an impairment charge of $204 million, while making a $64 million gain from bitcoin conversions in 2022.

An impairment charge describes a decline or loss in the value of an asset. This could occur because of changing economic circumstances, such as the crypto-winter that swept the market after the Terra Luna collapse in May 2022.

The annual disclosure to the SEC came less than a week after Tesla’s quarterly earnings report, which showed no bitcoin transactions, but nevertheless the company’s asset value declined, resulting in a loss of $43 million in the last four months of 2022.

Elon Musk’s Tesla still holds $218 million in bitcoin

In February 2021, Tesla invested a staggering $1.5 billion in bitcoin, becoming one of the largest corporate holders of the cryptocurrency, second only to MicroStrategy. At the time, bitcoin was trading at $46,364 per coin. According to CoinGecko, bitcoin reached its all-time high of $69,044 per coin by Nov. 10, 2021.

But the good times didn’t last long, as bitcoin, like the entire cryptocurrency market, went down in 2022. As of January 31, 2023, bitcoin will be trading at around $23,051.

Tesla’s impairment losses have nearly doubled since 2021, when Tesla reported a $101 million digital asset impairment loss and a $128 million gain after selling bitcoin in 2021 in a SEC filing that year.

In October 2022, Tesla told investors that it still held more than $218 million in bitcoin – about $936 million at the time – after selling 75% of its assets in July.