Nayib Bukele Announces Bitcoin Prescription for El Salvador: 1 BTC a Day

by · November 17, 2022

As the world’s first nation to adopt Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender in September 2021, El Salvador is returning to its BTC buying days after a hiatus of several months amid bearish market conditions.

El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele announced on November 16 that the Central American nation will begin buying BTC on a daily basis starting November 17. The announcement comes nearly three months after the nation made its last BTC purchase in July 2022.

El Salvador started buying BTC in September 2021, right after making it legal tender. At the time, BTC was in the midst of a bull market and every purchase made by the nation looked lucrative as the price reached a new all-time high every two weeks. However, with the emergence of the bear market by the second quarter of 2022, El Salvador’s early BTC purchase began to look like a gamble that incurred heavy losses.

According to public records, El Salvador currently has 2,381 BTC at an average purchase price of $43,357. Thus, the country has spent almost 103.23 million dollars on the BTC purchase, and the value of the same BTC is currently 39.4 million dollars.

El Salvador’s total BTC purchase history

The announcement of a new BTC buying routine at a time when the top cryptocurrency is trading at a new cycle low could help El Salvador offset some of its losses in the coming months.

Looking beyond the losses incurred by the small nation on their BTC purchases, the top cryptocurrency has helped significantly reduce the cost of cross-border money transfers and has also given a boost to the tourism sector.

Related: El Salvador’s Bitcoin Decision: Track Adoption a Year Later

Cointelegraph reporter Joe Hall is currently on the ground in El Salvador surviving only on BTC. Some early updates from Hall suggest that BTC is accepted in most tourist spots, but mobile applications and services need more refinement.

El Salvador’s BTC adoption may not look very promising at the moment due to the intense crypto winter. But looking at Bitcoin price cycle history, the nation can easily make up for its losses in the next bull cycle by simply holding on to BTC buying.