the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, announced this Thursday the purchase of 80 bitcoins for more than 1.5 million dollars at a time when the value of the crypto asset has fallen by nearly 60% in 2022.
"El Salvador today bought 80 #BTC (bitcoin) at $19,000 each! #Bitcoin is the future! thanks for selling cheap", the president posted on Twitter in a message in English.
Until before this Thursday, the Central American country had bought 2,301 units of bitcoin, without the Government having given an account of how many it keeps in reserve or has sold.
The best-known cryptocurrency in the market continues in free fall and this Thursday it barely exceeds 19,000 dollars, with which it will close the first half of the year with some losses of almost 60% of its value, according to data from Bloomberg consulted by Efe.
Likewise, the accumulated fall from the maximum reached last November, when bitcoin touched 69,000 dollars, reaches 72%.
Faced with this drop in value, the Minister of Finance of El Salvador, Alejandro Zelaya, stated that the country had not registered losses, since no coins have been sold.
However, local media publications indicate that in mid-June the official said that they sold some coins to finance the construction of a veterinary hospital.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF), an entity with which the Bukele government was negotiating an agreement for up to 1,400 million, urged the country to "limit the scope of the Bitcoin Law by eliminating its status as legal tender" and also expressed his "concern" for the issuance of cryptocurrency-backed bonds.
The risk rating agencies have pointed out the growing need for financing that the Salvadoran Government will have, which in 2023 must pay 800 million dollars of Eurobonds.