The Bitcoin (BTC) price, which briefly surpassed $42,000 on Monday for the first time since April 2022, has risen back above El Salvador’s average purchase price, putting the emerging Central American nation’s crypto bet back in the green.
El Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele proclaimed via a tweet on X earlier on Monday that the nation’s BTC “investments are in the black!”
El Salvador’s #Bitcoin investments are in the black!
After literally thousands of articles and hit pieces that ridiculed our supposed losses, all of which were calculated based on #Bitcoin’s market price at the time…
With the current #Bitcoin market price, if we were to sell… pic.twitter.com/gvl2GfQMfb
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) December 4, 2023
Bukele hit back at the “literally thousands” of articles that had been written about El Salvador’s supposed paper losses on its BTC investments in the past, all of which had cited the current Bitcoin market price.
He noted that at the current market price (in the mid-$41,000s at the time of his tweet), El Salvador is now sat on a tidy profit of $3.6 million.
As per a screenshot shared by the president detailing the nation’s BTC portfolio, El Salvador current owns around $130 million worth of BTC, having bought the cryptocurrency at an average price of $40,479 over the past two years.
El Salvador is estimated to own around 2,750 BTC.
Will President Nayib Bukele Sell BTC Holdings?
“We have no intention of selling… that has never been our objective” Bukele was keen to emphasise.
“We are fully aware that the price will continue to fluctuate in the future, this doesn’t affect our long-term strategy”.
Bukele has long been an avid supporter of Bitcoin, introducing the cryptocurrency as legal tender in El Salvador in 2021 and offering technical support for Bitcoin integration into the country’s economy.
Bukele believes Bitcoin offers countries such as El Salvador a chance to escape from the dominance of the inflationary US dollar.
Assuming the Bitcoin bull run continues, which seems likely as a dovish pivot in Fed policy seemingly nears and as institutional adoption optimism grows with spot Bitcoin ETFs expected to soon gain approval in the US, other South American nations such as Argentina may be eyeing making a similar Bitcoin bet.
Libertarian Argentinian President-elect Javier Milei has promised to dismantle to country’s central bank as the nation experiences triple-digit annual inflation, and is a known fan of Bitcoin.
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