Nayib Bukele, CEO of El Salvador, and one of the more public champions of crypto currencies, has been accumulating Bitcoin for his country.
Two of his biggest (public) arguments for promoting crypto to his people are:
- it saves on remittance fees
- most are unbanked
As of November 2022, these savings have not materialized. According to a report (Family remittances reached US$6,981.7 million as of November 2022) by the Central Reserve Bank of El Salvador:
..remittances received by our country between January and November 2022 accumulated US$6,981.7 million..
and
..US$116.4 million was received through cryptocurrency digital wallets...
Remittances through crypto only amounts to 1,7% of the total. This number is worth tracking to see if adoption takes place.
He has been buying occasionally and in large chunks before. In November 2022 he announced that he would be buying 1 BTC per day:
We are buying one #Bitcoin every day starting tomorrow.
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) November 17, 2022
There has been no further update on a that strategy since then.
If he followed through, this is what it would look like:
Starting in September 2021, Bukele has bought 2483 BTC at a total cost of $104 million for an average price of $42’003.
These investments amount to a loss of $45 million at the current Bitcoin price of $23’706.
This results in a paper loss of 44% of the principal. Bitcoin has lost 49% since he started buying.
It looked worse in the past. Dollar-cost-averaging started to work in his favor.
Data is based on Tweets by El Presidente himself. No verifiable blockchain data has been used.
Relevant Links
The "Crypto Critics' Corner" has new episode about Bitcoin and El Salvador out.
El Salvador Revisited: Chivo, KYC/AML, and Nayib Bukele (Feat. Domingo Flores) - Episode 76 - 02.06.2022
Bukele on the "What Bitcoin Did" podcast: Why El Salvador Made Bitcoin Legal Tender with President Nayib Bukele - 23.06.2021
Peter McCormack’s “What Bitcoin Did” podcast: Follow The Money #1 - Bitcoin in El Salvador - 17.05.2022
The second Bukele interview on the "What Bitcoin Did": Bitcoin in El Salvador - Part 2 with Nayib Bukele - 25.05.2022
Crypto starts June in a slump and the latest on El Salvador’s bitcoin experiment: CNBC Crypto World – 01.06.2022
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