El Salvador reveals cold wallet address holding 5,690 bitcoins, with only half being bought.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has recently been riding high on the surge of Bitcoin, showcasing his assets on Twitter. He mentioned that El Salvador has transferred most of its Bitcoin to a cold wallet, which is stored in a physical vault on national territory, calling it El Salvador's first Bitcoin piggy bank. Of the 5,690 Bitcoins owned, only half were purchased.
We've decided to transfer a big chunk of our #Bitcoin to a cold wallet, and store that cold wallet in a physical vault within our national territory.
You can call it our first #Bitcoin piggy bank πΈπ»
It's not much, but it's honest work π pic.twitter.com/dqzedykxT1
β Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) March 14, 2024
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Owns a Far Greater Amount of Bitcoin than Reported Purchases
According to statistics, El Salvador started buying Bitcoin in September 2021 when the price was around 51K, continuing until November 2022 with a total of 12 purchase records. During this period, the highest cost for buying Bitcoin was at 60K, and they also bought Bitcoin at a low of 19K. El Salvador is reported to hold a total of 2,864 Bitcoins, with an average cost of $42,631 each.
However, according to the wallet data displayed by President Nayib Bukele, the address actually holds about 5,690 Bitcoins, far exceeding the reported 2,864. Previously, his tweets also indicated that in addition to the purchased Bitcoin, El Salvador has also generated income from Bitcoin through the Salvadoran passport program, Bitcoin mining, converting Bitcoin to USD for local businesses, and government departments accepting Bitcoin payments, effectively implementing Bitcoin as a legal tender. Just from these purchased Bitcoins, it has brought in over $80 million in unrealized gains.
Bitcoin brings in a net profit of $83 million for El Salvador, President Bukele: more Bitcoin income to come
Professional Handling of Cold Wallets, Wallet Address Publicized for Donations
After Nayib Bukele publicized the wallet address, he received approval from many Bitcoin believers for using a cold wallet, considering it a professional practice. This address has also started receiving small donations.
Despite facing negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a $1.3 billion loan, and the IMF's publication on January 25 urging El Salvador to cancel Bitcoin's legal tender status to reduce the coverage of Bitcoin laws, Nayib Bukele, who has been successfully re-elected, seems more confident in pushing forward with Bitcoin as legal tender policy amidst the continuous rise of Bitcoin.