Bitcoin dropped sharply on Thursday evening, slumping by as much as 9%. The cryptocurrency was last trading at $26,593.68, representing a decline of more than 8%.

The fall came after The Wall Street Journal reported that SpaceX, helmed by Elon Musk, had written down the value of its bitcoin holdings by a total of $373 million in 2021 and 2022, and had sold the virtual currency.

Ryan Rasmussen, a researcher at Bitwise Asset Management, stated that this latest dramatic decline was “short-sighted and largely retail-driven”.

In 2022, Tesla, which Musk also leads as CEO, had announced that it sold about 75% of its bitcoin holdings after investing $1.5 billion in the flagship cryptocurrency.

The billionaire executive has been a vocal supporter of crypto, and a recent study found that his mentions of certain altcoins on Twitter has boosted the prices of those cryptocurrencies. Musk had also said at the “The B-Word” conference that he “might pump, but [he] doesn’t dump” if the price of bitcoin goes down.

The fall in bitcoin had been preceded by the Federal Reserve’s release of the minutes from its July policy meeting. In Thursday’s session, the cryptocurrency slumped to its lowest level in almost two months.