Facebook debunked rumors about buying bitcoin with the pub

The owner of the largest social network in the world did not add bitcoin to his balance sheets in the first quarter, contrary to rumors. On Wednesday, Facebook released its first-quarter financial statements, with results that beat expectations. However, there was no mention of cryptocurrencies.

Information that Facebook is preparing to disclose the purchase of bitcoin, was spread by the filing of entrepreneur Alistair Milne. He himself, however, denies that he was the source of the rumors. Subsequently, they were also picked up by the well-known American TV channel Fox Business.

The rumors were based on the hopes of market participants that large companies will follow the examples of MicroStrategy and Tesla, placing part of their reserves in bitcoin. The list of institutional bitcoin investors continues to be replenished with new names, but Facebook is not among them yet. In addition, the social network is at the origin of the newly launched stablecoin Diem (formerly Libra), so buying bitcoin can contradict its interests.

"If you can buy bitcoin, move the price through your tweets, and then sell, you probably should," Bloomberg wrote in reference to the sale of the cryptocurrency by Tesla, but this statement is equally true for the situation with Facebook.

The bitcoin market did see an increase in volatility before and after the firm's announcement. Before the release of the report, the price jumped by $1,400 to a daily high of $56,500. Traders opened positions in the hope that the rumors would be confirmed and the price of the cryptocurrency would experience a sharp positive impact from this. However, when it became clear that Facebook was not going to report anything like this, the price dropped sharply below the previous values and at the time of publication is again $ 54,500.