Three years ago, on September 7, 2021, the country of El Salvador shocked the world when its president, Nayib Bukele, announced that the country Accept Bitcoin as Legal TenderNot only that, the country also started buying BTC to bolster its reserves, and that supply grew over the years. Now that the country is three years into its BTC bet, let’s take a look at how it’s doing so far and whether this investment was a wise decision in the long run.
El Salvador’s Bitcoin Assets
The first-ever Bitcoin purchase by El Salvador, according to President Nayib Bukele, was made on September 6, 2021, a day before the announcement of BTC’s introduction as legal tender. At the time, the country bought 400 BTC for an average price of $46,811, which at the time cost $18.724 million.
Since then, however, the Bitcoin treasury has grown tremendouslywith multiple large purchases after the first. Just a year after the first purchase, the country had gotten its BTC supply above the 2,300 BTC level. It didn’t stop there, however, as more Bitcoin purchases were to follow.
At the time of writing, the country of El Salvador now holds a total of 5,867 BTC. The Nayib Tracker website shows that the average cost of this Bitcoin stock is $43,884, and with the BTC price At the time of writing, the value is above $55,000, meaning the country is making impressive profits on its assets.
The data on the website shows that the country now has a profit of $34.55 million on its Bitcoin purchases. This translates to a 25.88% profit on its BTC purchases over the past three years. Furthermore, its BTC stash makes El Salvador the third-largest government holder of Bitcoin in the world. According to facts According to Arkham Intelligence, it lags behind the US government at 203,238.74 BTC and the UK government at 61,245.01 BTC.
El Salvador does not give in
Despite significant gains on his Bitcoin holdings, President Nayib Bukele has revealed that the country has no plans to sell its BTCThe president has chosen not to look at his BTC holdings in terms of dollar value, but instead on a one-to-one scale – meaning 1 BTC is equal to 1 BTC regardless of dollar value.
Regarding the acceptance of Bitcoin as legal tender, the President has also publicly stated that residents are not forced to adopt the cryptocurrencyThe country continues to operate with two legal tenders – the US dollar and Bitcoin, and residents can use whichever payment method is most convenient for them.
El Salvador however remains committed to its Bitcoin mission. It launched its own BTC monitoring website which allows users to track a number of BTC statistics. Users can also track the country’s BTC holdings on this website.
Main image created with Dall.E, chart from Tradingview.com