El Salvador President Nayib Bukele has announced that the Central American country will begin buying Bitcoin on a daily basis starting today, November 17.
The announcement comes nearly three months after the country made its last bitcoin purchase in July 2022, acquiring 80 bitcoins at $19,000 a coin.
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El Salvador started buying the Bitcoin cryptocurrency in September 2022, right after it was made legal. At the time, Bitcoin was in the midst 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 expected to emerge by Q2 2022, early bitcoin purchases in El Salvador are starting to look like a gamble with huge losses.
El Salvador allegedly holds 2,381 bitcoins at an average purchase price of $43,357, according to data from Buy Bitcoin Worldwide. The value of these purchases mainly depends on when the president announced the start of investing in bitcoin.
El Salvador has reportedly spent around $103.23 million on its bitcoin purchases so far. However, with the cryptocurrency trading at around $16,500, that would mean the actual value of its shares is $39.47 million, meaning losses of more than $63 million.
One of the prominent figures in the cryptocurrency industry who promptly responded to the announcement of the president of El Salvador was the founder of Tron Justin Sun, who said: “We will also buy 1 bitcoin every day starting tomorrow.”
While Bukele has previously said El Salvador, which became the first country in the world to recognize Bitcoin as legal tender, has never sold any of its cryptocurrency holdings, it has never shared physical wallet addresses associated with previous purchases.
