El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele announced that the Central American country will start buying Bitcoin on a daily basis starting today, November 17.
The announcement comes nearly three months following the country made its last bitcoin purchase in July 2022, acquiring 80 bitcoins at $19,000 for one coin.
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El Salvador started buying the Bitcoin cryptocurrency in September 2022, right following it was made legal tender. At the time, Bitcoin was in the middle of a bull market and every purchase the country made was profitable as the price hit a new all-time high every two weeks.
However, with a bear market emerging by the second quarter of 2022, early bitcoin buys in El Salvador are starting to look like a gamble with huge losses.
El Salvador allegedly holds 2,381 bitcoins at an average buy price of $43,357, according to data from Buy Bitcoin Worldwide. The value of these purchases depends mainly on when the president announced the start of investing in bitcoin.
El Salvador has reportedly spent approximately $103.23 million on its bitcoin purchases so far. However, with the cryptocurrency trading at around $16,500, this would mean the actual value of its stock is $39.47 million, which means losses of over $63 million.
One of the prominent figures in the cryptocurrency industry who quickly responded to the announcement of the president of El Salvador was Tron founder Justin Sun, who said, “We will also buy 1 bitcoin every day starting tomorrow.”
While Bukele has previously stated that El Salvador, which became the first country in the world to recognize Bitcoin as legal tender, has never sold any of its cryptocurrency holdings, he has never shared physical wallet addresses associated with previous purchases.