A Reddit poster who claimed to be in the know of Tesla Inc’s TSLA investment in Bitcoin (BTC) has confirmed that the information he made public on Jan. 2 was not true, the New York Post reported Tuesday.
What Happened: After Tesla made its Bitcoin investment announcement on Monday, attention turned to the Reddit post by the user TSLAInsider made five-weeks prior.
See also: How to Buy Bitcoin (BTC)
“I am a software dev working at R&D at Tesla in California, over the past 72 hours our company bought 24701 BTC at an average price of 33142$,” the user with the handle TSLAinsider posted on Reddit last month,” the post read, as reported by Reuters.
The Post claimed that the Reddit user behind the TSLAInsider handle is a 24-year old German political science student named Hendrik.
“If you want to know the truth: I am a young German guy and I was on Acid while I did this post in the last month,” Hendrik told the Post in an interview.
“I had this afflatus that Elon is going to buy Bitcoin, so I created this trollpost. And now all the newspapers around the globe are writing about it, its kinda funny and scary to be honest.”
The user posted a link to the Post’s story and appeared to corroborate it.
Why It Matters: Reddit forums have been in the increased spotlight ever since r/WallStreetBets took Wall Street bigwigs head-on with a short squeeze in the shares of GameStop Corp GME, AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc AMC, Blackberry Ltd BB, and others.
See Also: Reddit Pays Ode To GameStop 'Underdogs' In 5-Second Super Bowl Ad
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen last week said last week that financial market regulators needed to take stock of the frenzy surrounding GameStop and other stocks before taking any action, according to Reuters.
The social media platform doubled its valuation to $6 billion as it raised $250 million in Series E funding from existing and new investors.
Bitcoin touched its all-time high of $48,003.72 on Tuesday after the Tesla announcement. The cryptocurrency traded 0.10% higher at $46,392.83 at press-time.
On Tuesday, Grayscale Bitcoin Trust GBTC closed 4.84% higher at $47.90.
Price Action: Tesla shares closed nearly 1.6% lower at $849.46 on Tuesday and fell 0.47% in the after-hours session.
Read Next: This Is How Tesla Could Let You Buy An EV With Bitcoin
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