Under the leadership of President Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s Bitcoin [BTC] holdings have flourished. From its initial acquisition of 700 BTC, the nation’s holdings surged to 2,798 coins by January, now boasting a remarkable value of $130.5 million.
Amidst this financial milestone, President Bukele’s bold move caught attention across the global financial landscape.
Taking to X (earlier Twitter), he declared,
“We won’t sell, of course; at the end 1 BTC = 1 BTC (this was true when the market price was low and it’s true now).”
This proclamation marks a continuation of El Salvador’s strong stance since September 2021, when it captured international attention by integrating Bitcoin into its national strategy.
El Salavdor’s unrealized profits amidst skepticism
Unfortunately, some doubted El Salvador’s Bitcoin acquisition, believing it to be an unprofitable venture.
Responding to this criticism Bukele tweeted,
“When Bitcoin’s market price was low, they wrote literally thousands of articles about our supposed losses.”
The central American country bought BTC in November 2022 at an average cost of $42,440 per BTC. With the current Bitcoin price around $61,000, Bukele reaffirms that the country has unrealized profits of about $40 million.
“Now that Bitcoin’s market price is way up if we were to sell, we would make a profit of over 40% (just from the market purchases), and our main source of BTC is now our citizenship program.”
Snowden and MicroStrategy share similar approaches
Edward Snowden, a whistleblower, said in a tweet on 29th February,
“A national government will be revealed this year to have been buying Bitcoin—the modern replacement for monetary gold—without having disclosed that fact publicly.”
Additionally, MicroStrategy also recently revealed the benefits of its Bitcoin strategy, much like El Salvador. Led by Michael Saylor, the company holds a portfolio of 193,000 BTC, valued at over $11.7 billion based on current market prices.
Similar to El Salvador, MicroStrategy has no intentions of selling its BTC holdings, even as the cryptocurrency’s price approaches new all-time highs.