The Central American country of El Salvador seems to have taken full advantage of the bitcoin (BTC) “sale” that started yesterday. The price of the king of cryptocurrencies dropped below $31,000 and according to El Salvador president Nayib Bukele, now was the perfect time to buy again.
El Salvador buys the bitcoin dip
President Bukele announced this in a tweet yesterday. They have decided to add about $15.5 million in bitcoin to the treasury. Converted this is 500 bitcoins. Although no official figures are available on the country’s total bitcoin holdings, it seems that El Salvador now has tens of millions worth of bitcoin.
El Salvador just bought the dip!
500 coins at an average USD price of ~$30,744 🥳#Bitcoin
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) May 9, 2022
Yesterday’s purchase was the largest the country has made since bitcoin was made legal tender there in September of 2021. The last time El Salvador bought from was in January of this year. Then the bitcoin price crashed to $36,000.
It also seems very likely that El Salvador is not yet finished with their bitcoin project. In fact, there are even plans to launch a true “Bitcoin City” which will be financed through the issuance of so-called “Bitcoin bonds”. All of this would aim to make El Salvador a global tech hub.
Criticism of bitcoin plans El Salvador
However, not everyone is equally convinced of these ambitious plans. so let the IMF already know a number of times that they are very concerned about the adoption of bitcoin in the country. They argue that the risks to the country’s financial stability are enormous.
Even the population in their own country has doubts about the bitcoin adoption by the government. That is of course not very surprising, since tax money is used to buy bitcoin. Especially when the price of bitcoin falls, criticism of the government from El Salvador flares up again.