Bitcoin rebounded after a brief sell-off late on Wednesday sparked by news that electric carmaker Tesla Inc had sold about 75% of its holdings of the virtual token. Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk cited concerns about his company’s “overall liquidity” as the reason for the sale. The world’s largest cryptocurrency was last up 1.04% at $23,494.57, after sliding as much as 0.5% to $23,268.92 on the news. Tesla sold $936 million worth of bitcoin in the second quarter, more than a year after the company bought $1.5 billion of the cryptocurrency at the peak of its massive growth and popularity. Musk has been an outspoken supporter of cryptocurrencies. His statements on the future of crypto and disclosures about his ownership of digital assets often boost the price of dogecoin and bitcoin.

On Tesla’s earnings call, Musk said the primary reason for the sale was uncertainty about lockdowns due to Covid-19 in China, which have created production challenges for the company.

“It was important for us to maximize our cash position,” Musk said. “We are certainly open to increasing our bitcoin holdings in future, so this should not be taken as some verdict on bitcoin. It’s just that we were concerned about overall liquidity for the company.” Musk added that Tesla did not sell any of its dogecoin, a meme-based cryptocurrency that he has touted. Rupee Gains Ground, A Day After Hitting An All-Time Low Of 80.06 Per Dollar

The rupee gained a touch further early on Friday, July 22, a day after hitting its lowest ever of 80.06 against the dollar but closing out below the key psychological rate of 80. Bloomberg quoted the rupee at 79.8963 against the dollar early on Friday, with a trading range of 79.8750 to 79.9088, after opening at 79.8875. But PTI reported that the Indian currency fell 5 paise to 79.90 against the US dollar in early trade. In the previous session, the rupee had hit an all-time low of 80.0638, but closed out the day at 79.9538 against the greenback, according to Bloomberg.

That was driven largely because of the Reserve Bank of India‘s intervention in the spot and futures markets to limit the sharp decline in the Indian currency. What has helped the domestic currency is the impetus in Asian stocks and foreign portfolio investments (FPIs) in Indian capital markets rising to the highest since November 17 on Thursday. The net foreign fund inflows on Thursday jumped to over $1 billion. Fading recession fears on taming of expectations for a very aggressive rate hikes on slowing global economic growth, the dollar well of its recent multi-year highs and a fall in crude oil prices have helped that turnaround in foreign funds flow into Indian markets.