At the current price just above $70,000, the nation now holds about $400 million worth of bitcoin.
El Salvador Doubles Down on Bitcoin
The country is setting a precedent for others to follow, Moonwalker Capital Tatiana Koffman writes.
Where Is Nayib Bukele Actually Storing El Salvador’s Bitcoin?
Last week, the sats stacking president of the “Land of Many Volcanoes” announced he was moving the country’s thousands of BTC into a bitcoin “piggy bank.”
El Salvador Has Thousands More Bitcoins Than Previously Known
The Central American nation moved $400 million in BTC into a cold storage wallet this week.
El Salvador Axes Income Tax for Investments From Abroad
The nation, which is attempting to attract foreign capital, removed income tax on investment from overseas.
El Salvador’s Bukele Says Value of Country’s Bitcoin Holdings Up Over 40%
The country’s bonds have also surged to over 80 cents on the dollar.
El Salvador’s Bitcoin-Friendly President Nayib Bukele Wins Re-Election
The country in 2021 became the first nation to adopt bitcoin as legal tender.
El Salvador’s BTC Bet Is $13M in Profit as Bitcoin ETF Approval Approaches
El Salvador is sitting on a $12.6 million unrealized profit on its bitcoin investment after being in the red for two years.
El Salvador's Volcano Bond gets regulatory approval, targets Q1 launch
The Volcano Bond was approved by the country’s Digital Assets Commission on Dec. 11, with issuance expected in Q1, 2024.
Less than 2% of El Salvador's population holds crypto: Report
According to a recent report, crypto enthusiasm in El Salvador lags behind despite the country’s ongoing pro-crypto initiatives.
Nayib Bukele steps down as El Salvador’s President ahead of re-election bid
Acting President Claudia Rodríguez de Guevara, the first female head of state for El Salvador, took office on Dec. 1 and is expected to serve until June 2024.
El Salvador pro-Bitcoin president Nayib Bukele launches re-election bid
Despite Bukele’s popularity, some critics argue he isn’t eligible to be re-elected under El Salvador’s constitution.
El Salvador’s Bitcoiners teach 12-year-olds how to send sats
Over 25,000 students in El Salvador have learned about Bitcoin in the classroom.
El Salvador’s Bonds Surge 62% Amid Bitcoin’s ETF-Driven Rally
El Salvador’s bonds due in 2027 have gained 62% in the last six months as the country finds itself on a better financial footing.
El Salvador President Says Country Will Buy 1 Bitcoin A Day
Since the bitcoin price decline began, El Salvador and its president Nayib Bukele have basically been put under a microscope. The country’s bitcoin plan had seen it buy more than 2,300 BTC but the bear market had wiped a significant portion of the value from their holdings. Nevertheless, Bukele has not backed down on his stance that bitcoin would be good for the country’s future and said El Salvador will continue to buy bitcoin.
1 Bitcoin A Day
Despite more than $60 million in value being wiped off the El Salvador bitcoin holdings, Nayib Bukele says the country is going to continue buying BTC. In a recent tweet, the president explained that there is a new strategy for accumulating bitcoin for the country.
According to him, El Salvador is going to start buying 1 bitcoin a day. As for when this will begin, the president explained that it will go into effect on Friday, Nov. 18. There was no timeline for how long this will run for in the tweet.
We are buying one #Bitcoin every day starting tomorrow.
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) November 17, 2022
Bukele received support from Tron founder Justin Sun who said that TRON DAO would also follow in El Salvador’s bitcoin and buy 1 BTC every day starting from Friday.
We echo @nayibbukele’s initiative in buying #Bitcoin daily. We will also buy one #Bitcoin everyday starting tomorrow! @trondaoreserve @trondao https://t.co/cRqfBIPKGR
— H.E. Justin Sun
(@justinsuntron) November 17, 2022
At such rates, the buying spree would quickly increase El Salvador’s bitcoin holdings which currently sit at 2,381 BTC as of the time of this writing. The country has also completed one year of BTC being legal tender despite mixed reactions from residents toward this.
BTC trending in the mid $16,000s | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView.com
El Salvador has been put in an unstable position following its decision to hold BTC as part of its treasury. The country which is already stressed with debt recently received an offer from China to buy off this debt, but Bukele explained that the country continues to tread carefully. “We are not going to sell to the first bidder,” he added.
As for where the country stores its Bitcoin, the president has dismissed rumors that it held its BTC on the now-bankrupt FTX exchange. This was confirmed by Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao who posted on Twitter that he had spoken to the president and that El Salvador has no business with FTX.
Presently, the value of El Salvador’s bitcoin is sitting at $41 million with an unrealized loss of more than $65 million. The country has not shown any indication that it plans to sell, and its holdings could cross 3,000 BTC if it continues its 1 BTC purchases until the next bull market.
Featured image from Forbes, chart from TradingView.com
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El Salvador’s Bitcoin wallet Chivo scores $52M in remittances in 2022
El Salvador payment app Chivo processed $52 million in remittances over the past six months, as expatriates make use of commission-free BTC transfers.
Bitcoin bond still on hold, El Salvador accused of human rights violations
El Salvador’s finance minister believes the ongoing price volatility of Bitcoin means the awaited “Bitcoin bond” won’t be launched anytime soon. Meanwhile the country faces a “human rights crisis.”
More Stress For El Salvador As Bitcoin Dips To $29,000
El Salvador has been on the radar of leading financial and economic institutions since it made Bitcoin a legal tender. It has mainly become a spectacle as cryptocurrency supporters and non-supporters alike watch on to see how this plays out. El Salvador which had made good on its bitcoin promise had made multiple BTC purchases at close to the height of the market last year and some this year.
The country now holds at least 2,300 BTC since it made its first purchase in September of 2021. Now that the price of Bitcoin is down significantly since the country had begun buying, how is this playing out for the North American country?
El Salvador And Its Bitcoin
El Salvador had bought another 500 BTC in May after the market had declined to $1.68 trillion. These bitcoins which were purchased at an average price of $30,774 had brought the country’s holdings to 2,301 BTC so far. It would be the lowest price that the country had been able to purchase the digital asset and given that this purchase was only a small part of its larger holdings, the country still remains in loss from its multiple purchases.
Related Reading | Funding Rates Fall To Yearly Lows Following Bitcoin’s Fall Below $29,000
The first time El Salvador had bought some BTC in September, it had been trading above $44,000. What this means is that the digital asset is down about 45% since then. Its entire stash is now worth about $70 million at present prices. So even with the dollar cost averaging method that has seen the country buy BTC at different prices, it is still down 28% from its total purchase value.
BTC falls to $28,000 | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView.com
The move to accept BTC has not only proved controversial on just the bitcoin price side, but it has also affected the country’s ability to receive international aid in the form of loans.
Last year, it was made public that the country had been looking to secure $1.3 billion from the IMF. However, this does not seem likely to happen given that the IMF has expressed its disdain for the adoption of bitcoin as a legal tender.
It has advised the country to remove the digital asset as an official national currency, citing that this could cause problems for the economy in the long-term, revealing that the current account deficit for El Salvador’s remittance and the external financing-reliant economy is estimated to drift around $2 billion for the next three years. But President Nayib Bukele has turned a deaf ear to this.
Related Reading | Crypto Carnage Causes Flight To Bitcoin Safe Haven, Dominance Demonstrates
El Salvador is a country that is heavily reliant on remittances from citizens abroad who send money home to loved ones. For this reason, the president has said that BTC will greatly help make these remittances easier and cheaper for its residents.
On the price side, the president is not much bothered by the recent decline either. He has said in the past that he expects the price of the digital asset to reach $100,000 sometime in 2022. If this happens, then the country will be in significant profit from its BTC holdings.
Featured image from Coingape, chart from TradingView.com
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Single inactive volcano has 90% chance of powering El Salvador’s Bitcoin City, according to president
According to Nayib Bukele, should the power consumption of the country’s planned Bitcoin City exceed the volcano’s capacity, geothermal energy can be sourced from other sites.
El Salvador: How it started vs. how it’s going with the Bitcoin Law in 2021
The Latin American nation is still struggling to cope with BTC’s volatility when used as a medium of exchange and gaining mainstream understanding and acceptance from its populace.
