El Salvador bought roughly $20.9 million worth of bitcoin one day before it formally adopts the world’s most popular cryptocurrency as legal tender. In a series of tweets Monday, President Nayib Bukele revealed that the country had purchased a total of 400 bitcoin, the first step in a larger push to add the digital currency to its balance sheet.
“Our brokers will be buying a lot more as the deadline approaches.”
The President’s tweets were posted a few hours apart. Based on the bitcoin price at the time of the tweets, the amount of the digital coin purchased totaled roughly $20.9 million. “Our brokers will be buying a lot more as the deadline approaches,” he wrote. The price of bitcoin rose following the tweets and was trading at around $52,681.85 at the time of writing. The posts came hours before El Salvador’s bitcoin law, which was passed in June, took effect Tuesday. El Salvador is the first country to accept bitcoin as a legal currency, which will work alongside the U.S. dollar.
El Salvador has just bought it’s first 200 coins.
Our brokers will be buying a lot more as the deadline approaches.#BitcoinDay #BTC🇸🇻
— Nayib Bukele 🇸🇻 (@nayibbukele) September 6, 2021
Bukele’s announcement marks a major milestone for bitcoin.
El Salvador’s President Bukele’s announcement has marked a major milestone for bitcoin. El Salvador is now the first country to have officially put bitcoin on its balance sheet and hold it in its reserves. But the policy has drawn criticism across the country. Nearly 70% of Salvadorans surveyed by the Central American University disagreed with the administration’s decision to adopt bitcoin as legal tender. Many were also unsure of how to use digital currency. But the policy has also drawn criticism across the country. Nearly 70% of Salvadorans surveyed by the Central American University disagreed with the administration’s decision to adopt bitcoin as legal tender.
