El Salvador acquired 500 bitcoins for 15.3 million dollars, taking advantage of the fall in the price of the cryptocurrency that is legal tender in the country, the president announced on Monday. Nayib Bukele.
El Salvador “just bought” at a time of a fall in its value “500 coins at an average price of 30,744 dollars,” the president said on his Twitter account.
This is not the first time that the government has announced the purchase of this cryptocurrency when its price is falling. Already last January he bought 410 bitcoins when each was around $36,456.
With the latest acquisition, The Savior owns 2,301 bitcoins.
El Salvador became on September 7, 2021 the first country in the world to officially use the bitcoinlegalizing its use in all transactions at par with the US dollar, the official currency for two decades.
When Bukele launched his plan, the bitcoin It was around $47,000 and in early November of last year, it hit $67,000. Bukele took advantage of those profits to build a public veterinary hospital.
However, since that rise, its price has been declining.
The Salvadoran decision to adopt bitcoin as legal tender caused controversy. Earlier this year, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) He urged the country to annul this measure, considering that the use of this cryptocurrency entails “great associated risks.”
El Salvador has a public debt of around 90% of its GDP and is negotiating a $1.3 billion loan with the IMF to clean up its coffers.
It also has a bond issue pending in bitcoin equivalent to 1,000 million dollars, for the construction of its BitcoinCitya city in the east of the country, and that plans to operate with thermal energy from the Conchagua volcano.
Recently, the Minister of Finance, Alejandro Zelaya, said that “it will be the president” who will give the order as to when this issuance of debt papers will be made in bitcoin. In Zelaya’s opinion, “the ideal date” to put the bonds on the market is during “the first semester” of the year.
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