El Salvador will buy one Bitcoin a day, says the country’s president
(Kitco News) Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele is doubling down on his Bitcoin stake despite the massive price drop, pledging to buy one Bitcoin a day starting Friday.
El Salvador was the first country to make Bitcoin legal tender – a move that happened in September 2021, just a couple of months before Bitcoin reached its all-time high of $69,000 in November 2021. Since then, the world’s largest cryptocurrency has been on a steep downhill slide, falling 75% from the record highs.
More recently, Bitcoin got caught up in the FTX saga with the rest of the crypto market and lost the $17,000 support level on Thursday. At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at $16,688.
Despite mounting losses, Bukele is not giving up on Bitcoin. “We’re buying a #Bitcoin every day starting tomorrow,” he tweeted on Thursday.
We buy one #Bitcoin every day starting tomorrow.
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) 17 November 2022
Bukele has come under public criticism for his choice to diversify into Bitcoin – a decision that has not been popular with his citizens.
One of Bukele’s main arguments for adopting Bitcoin was to allow his people to save on bank fees when receiving or transferring money from abroad, especially to and from the United States. Money made up more than a quarter of El Salvador’s GDP.
A year later, however, the Salvadoran central bank said Bitcoin still accounted for “less than two percent” of all remittances from emigrants.
On top of that, most Salvadorans see the move as a “failure,” according to a recent poll conducted by the University of Central America (UCA). The survey revealed that 75.6% of respondents never used cryptocurrency this year, and 77% consider crypto adoption “to have been a failure,” AFP reported citing the survey.
The adoption of Bitcoin “is the government’s most unpopular measure, the most criticized and the most disliked,” UCA Principal Andreu Oliva said when discussing the results of the polls.
Nevertheless, Bukele seems unfazed by the criticism. During the turbulent summer months, he used public money to buy more Bitcoin at lower prices, acquiring another 80 Bitcoin at $19,000 each in July. El Salvador’s total Bitcoin reserves now stand at 2,381 units. And the president is down more than $62 million on his crypto investment.
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