Elon Musk defends Tesla's $1.5 billion bitcoin bet as 'adventurous enough' for a S&P 500 company - and says it's less dumb than holding cash

• Elon Musk said Tesla's bitcoin bet was "adventurous enough for an S&P500 company."
• Musk was responding to Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, who had called out Musk's support of Dogecoin.
• Zhao said he was surprised that Musk was an advocate of Dogecoin, which was created as a joke.

Elon Musk defended Tesla's $1.5 billion bet on bitcoin after the CEO of a major cryptocurrency exchange called out the billionaire's support for Dogecoin, a meme-based token.

"Having some Bitcoin, which is simply a less dumb form of liquidity than cash, is adventurous enough for an S&P500 company," Musk tweeted on Thursday in response to a Bloomberg interview with Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao.

Tesla earlier this month announced its significant investment in bitcoin and said it planned to adopt the digital asset as payment for its products.

In the interview, Zhao said he was surprised that Musk was an advocate of Dogecoin, which was created as a joke. Musk has recently tweeted about the Shiba Inu-themed token, sparking a surge in its price. Last week, he said he had bought some for his 9-month-old son.

"I strongly believe that he's not really associated with Dogecoin in any way," Zhao said of Musk, noting that Tesla's bet was on bitcoin and not on the "joke" asset.

Binance has added Dogecoin futures recently based on consumer demand. That's because it's gaining popularity for reasons nobody expected, Zhao said.

Musk later explained the reason for Tesla's move.

"When fiat currency has negative real interest, only a fool wouldn't look elsewhere," Musk tweeted. "Bitcoin is almost as bs as fiat money. The key word is 'almost.'"

Other Wall Street names have been embracing bitcoin, driving the token's price to an all-time high above $52,000 this week.

Zhao told Bloomberg that as bitcoin had surged, Binance had seen more than 300,000 new user registrations daily. Volumes on the exchange are even higher than they were in 2017, he said.

"There's a lot more activity now in this industry than three years ago," Zhao said. "We are just at the beginning."

Bitcoin on Friday rose by 2%, to about $52,740, as of 9:40 a.m. GMT.