Three years ago, on September 7, 2021, El Salvador shocked the world when its president, Nayib Bukele, announced that the country would adopt bitcoin as legal tender. Not only that, the country also began buying btc to increase its reserves, growing that stash over the years. Now that the country has been betting on btc for three years, let’s take a look at how it’s doing so far and whether this investment was a wise decision in the long run.
bitcoin holdings in El Salvador
El Salvador's first bitcoin purchase, according to President Nayib Bukele, was made on September 6, 2021, one day before the announcement of the adoption of btc as legal tender. At the time, the country purchased 400 btc at an average price of $46,811, which at the time was worth $18.724 billion.
However, since then, the bitcoin treasury has grown greatly, with multiple major purchases following the initial one. Just a year after the first purchase, the country had managed to get its btc reserves above the 2300 btc level. However, it did not stop there, as more bitcoin purchases were coming.
At the time of writing this article, the country of El Salvador now holds a total of 5,867 btc. Nayib's tracker website shows that the average cost of this bitcoin stash is $43,884, and with the price of btc above $55,000 at the time of writing, it means the country is making impressive profits on its holdings.
Data from the website shows that the country now has a profit of $34.55 million from its bitcoin purchases, which translates to a 25.88% profit on its btc purchases over the past three years. Additionally, its btc reserve makes El Salvador the third-largest government holder of bitcoin in the world. According to data According to Arkham Intelligence, it ranks behind the US government with 203,238.74 btc and the UK government with 61,245.01 btc.
El Salvador is not slowing down
Despite seeing notable gains in his bitcoin holdings, President Nayib Bukele has revealed that the country has no plans to sell its btc. The president has chosen not to consider his btc holdings in terms of dollar value, but rather on a one-to-one scale, meaning that 1 btc is equal to 1 btc regardless of the dollar value.
As for the adoption of bitcoin as legal tender, the president has also publicly stated that residents have not been forced to adopt the cryptocurrency. The country still operates with two legal tenders: the US dollar and bitcoin, and residents are free to use whichever one is most convenient for them.
However, El Salvador remains committed to its bitcoin mission. It launched its own btc monitoring system bitcoin.gob.sv/” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>website which allows users to track a number of btc metrics. Users can also track the country’s btc holdings on this website.
Featured image created with Dall.E, chart from Tradingview.com
