El Salvador Buys the Dip, Adds 80 BTC to Its Balance Sheet

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Following the recent market downturn, President Nayib Bukele and the government of El Salvador caught a significant amount of backlash for buying Bitcoin worth millions of dollars with public money.

However, the crypto-believing President remains adamant in his belief that Bitcoin is the future and is doubling down on his bet.

“Thanks for Selling Cheap”

In the early hours of Friday, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele took to Twitter to confirm that his government had bought the Bitcoin dip. Bragging about the purchase, the President claimed that El Salvador had bought 80 BTC at an average price of $19,000. This would put the government’s entire BTC spend at $1.52 million.

Bukele and the government of El Salvador remain confident in their ability to weather the storm and reap gains from their crypto investments. The government has been accumulating units of Bitcoin for a little over a year now, following their acceptance of the leading digital asset as a form of legal tender. However, this isn’t to say that the journey has been smooth.

When El Salvador made Bitcoin legal tender, the digital asset traded at about $50,000. The government bought millions of dollars worth of the asset at the time, both as an investment and to distribute to individuals and companies looking to hold some of it.

A little over a month later, Bitcoin hit its all-time high of $69,000 and Bukele was hailed as a genius who was looking to gain value from a prolific investment. But, all of that praise has turned to widespread scorn and condemnation now that Bitcoin is trading at lows.

Last month, amid all of the criticism, Bukele advised crypto holders to remain firm and patient as the asset’s price would still rise. As Bukele explained at the time, the market is simply going through one of many bear cycles to come. So there is no reason to sell Bitcoin right now.

“Stop looking at the graph and enjoy life”, the President said. Bukele remains surprisingly relaxed about his country’s public investment losing over 50% of its value.

Alejandro Zelaya, the country’s Finance Minister, has also remained bullish in his outlook. Speaking at a press conference, Zelaya explained that he wasn’t ready to classify El Salvador’s investment in Bitcoin as a loss because they hadn’t sold any units of the asset yet. Despite that, according to tracking data, they continue to ride a massive loss of $60 million – down by 57.2%.

MicroStrategy’s Mega Bitcoin Appetite

Bukele isn’t the only Bitcoin bull loading up his position amid the bear market. Earlier this week, business intelligence firm MicroStrategy also scooped up BTC. The CEO of MicroStrategy, Michael Saylor, confirmed that they had bought 480 units of the asset.

In a tweet, Saylor confirmed MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin buy. He added that the company had spent a further $10 million on the coin. The company, which has been accumulating Bitcoin for over two years now, currently has 129,699 units of the coin – valued at $2.5 billion at press time.

Like El Salvador, MicroStrategy has suffered some heavy losses from the market downturn. Data from Bitcoin Treasuries shows that the company is currently sitting on an unrealised loss of about $1.4 billion, with Bitcoin’s current price of $19,600 being more than a 50% loss from the company’s average buying price for all its coins.

The Virginia-based company has also been fighting rumours of a margin call following a $205 million loan it got from Silvergate Bank earlier this year to buy more BTC. The asset dropping below $21,000 was supposed to trigger the margin call, but Saylor and MicroStrategy’s top management have so far claimed that they are in excellent financial shape to weather any storm.

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About Jimmy Aki PRO INVESTOR

Based in the UK, Jimmy is an economic researcher with outstanding hands-on and heads-on experience in Macroeconomic finance analysis, forecasting and planning. He has honed his skills having worked cross-continental as a finance analyst, which gives him inter-cultural experience. He currently has a strong passion for regulation and macroeconomic trends as it allows him peek under the global bonnet to see how the world works.