The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, assured that the country will continue with the “program” of purchasing one bitcoin daily, which will be stored in the “cold wallet”, a cryptocurrency wallet that is not connected to the internet.
“The 1 bitcoin a day program has just deposited today’s bitcoin (Friday, in the cold wallet),” the president said on his X (formerly Twitter) account.
According to Bukele, this purchase “will continue” until “bitcoin becomes unavailable with fiat currencies”, that is, those backed by national governments (such as the US dollar) and whose value is determined by the authorities of each country.
Bukele announced on November 16, 2022 that El Salvador would buy one bitcoin daily.
On Thursday, the president announced that the country has put millions of dollars in Bitcoin in a “cold wallet” or offline, at a time when the cryptocurrency is registering record prices.
With the implementation of bitcoin, Bukele aimed to reduce the costs associated with remittances from abroad and promote mass banking among Salvadorans. (MARVIN RECINOS/AFP)
The cold wallet seeks to protect cryptocurrency investment offline (without an internet connection) to prevent external hacker attacks.
According to data from the cold wallet, as of last Friday, March 15, El Salvador had 5,690 bitcoins in it, worth $394.04 million. On Thursday, when Bukele announced the creation of the cold wallet, those values were $406.6 million dollars, which added up to 5,689 bitcoins.
The value of bitcoin reported this Friday is lower, since the price of the crypto asset dropped to $69,265, while on Thursday the cryptocurrency was quoted above $73,000.
On September 7, 2021, at Bukele’s initiative, El Salvador became the first country in the world to legally put bitcoin into circulation at par with the US dollar, which was established in 2001 as legal tender.
88% of Salvadorans did not use bitcoin in their transactions during 2023, a survey by the private Central American University (UCA) said in January.