Topic: The president of El Salvador just bout 420 BTC! (Read 593 times)

Buying a lot of bitcoin could only mean a huge expense from the government's money so i really think that this has been well planned by the country's leaders. The risks is really big because the market's volatility could possibly create a huge drop of bitcoin price and they might end up losing their money in an instant.

However, if this big decision will possibly work in the near future, then it will also create a big progress in the country that will also benefit all its citizens. Although this is something to be fear of because of its win-lose scenario, but knowing bitcoin it will always end up into a a huge success.

Their BTC purchases are, as far as I’m aware, made through their 150M $ Trust, and not from any other budgeting source. They are there to provide for the BTC to USD and vice-versa conversion within the Chivo System, and not as a separate budget to buy and hodl.

I’ve just come across a Salvadorian online newspaper that tries to put a number to their (unrealized) “benefits” made through these purchases:
See (Google Translated): https://www-contrapunto-com-sv.translate.goog/btc-76-millones-en-excedentes-supera-3-millones-capacitados/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=nui

The net summary from the above table places the bookkeeping numbers with a 7.6M $ unrealized benefit as of 31/10/2021. Considering those, the Government seems to be drawing USD from the Trust, and using it to pay for a pet clinic, and just recently announced, 20 schools for the country, all while the bookkeeping balance meets the minimum of 150M $. We can see the accounting risk here right ?

Note: Actually reading to get the context goes a long way; much further than shooting blanks.

I don't think they're just buying it for the sake of holding it; I believe it's to help their economy cycle since they legalized bitcoin, and I believe they'll offer it as a payment method just to get people to try it, or they're planning something big. Though, in terms of holding it, there is still a lot of risk because we don't know what will happen, but we should be prepared for losses as well as wins because there are times when it is dump. However, risking is the best option because you will know whether or not you will win.

There's no magic here since eventhough how promising bitcoin in  terms of profitability for holding it for so many years still we have a huge risk that we might don't get the target price we set for future and sometimes a huge dumps will came and that can affect their economy but I'm sure he know on what he is doing since for sure he have experience advisers on his side and have a proper planning on what actions they need to do once the market collapsed on certain times.

Just too dumb that he would treat up the money he had spent out on buying those coins was his own or personal where on the time he do make out profits then he would get those profits on.

Well, we cant really remove that kind of probability but since everything could really be seen on chain on how much had been taken off as a profit then he could anytime be sued out.

It just looks like their president is really  that obsessed with Bitcoin but i wont say its bad but he should really know about the risk behind.

I was not aware that they have a young president, i thought someone old is ruling the country and Nayib Bukele is just 40 years old and no wonder he implemented these radical changes. Even i was thinking why would anyone take these initiatives but i was not aware he was young in politics. Not sure about his investment though, may be he was holding when the price was low or made money through any alts and reinvesting it and made news headlines  .

I also asked myself the same question, in a few months we'll see another topic saying that he bought more bitcoin.

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 so far I'm wondering what his objective is and what is the target price he intends to sell and what will he do with the money because the money is from the people and I don't think he tells the people what his objective is with every bitcoin purchase he makes

That's part of their marketing only. Since El Salvador is known to be the first country to make bitcoin as legal tender, we will expect more support to the crypto market especially bitcoin. Just to show maybe, that their decision to join this market is worth it. Nowadays, promoting something is easy as you can freely publish it via your social media channels. It will also raise awareness on what they are doing to supplement their move towards crypto.

Bitcoin was created to take a way some power from centralized institutions, but now we have came full circle and are embracing a government pushing Bitcoin adoption to their people.

If Joe Biden will say tomorrow "I decided to buy 420 BTC", the rest of the government would have quite a debate about it and it's unclear if he would be able to do it or not, but this guy can buy any amount at any time and nothing can really stop him, so there's definitely some authoritarianism going here.

When mere speculators gets media attention and news articles let the President of El Salvador get his moment of shine with these news because he took the bold step to implement a rule no one did by accepting Bitcoin as a legal tender and anything he does will get these press releases. How the people of El Salvador will be reacting to these news is a different question but anything positive is a good news during a rally  .

No, you are wrong, if things keep going up, he will add the profit to the budget but if the things are going down, he will open short position on futures trading and will profit again (I'm joking Ofc).


I guess the president is verified on Binance and holds the money
The most curious thing will be if he starts futures trading with high leverages. Do you wanna dip? Then do 2x leverage and it will look like you bought bitcoin at it's half price. I hope he won't use 10x leverage.

Idk why people are happy because of that but I would say, this is just a very poor decision/action. He acts like a person who is a kid but thinks that become a matured man (i.e. teen who tries to act cool but does all the shit in reality).

I hope bitcoin will go up more before this year end so that those people will not cry afterwards.. Lol because you know bitcoin seems not yet done seeking for strong support level at this moment in my view, i mean there's a chance it will attempt or restest those supports below the current price, and for sure if holders sees a strong bearish sign of course there will be a panic selling like what always happen. I hope not 420BTC?. that's massive!.

Good morning @Rufsilf, you seem to have woken up from some long sleep if you think 420 BTC is a lot because El Salvador has bought 1120 BTC so far -  do you think there is a word better than insane to describe one country buying so much BTC?

Maybe you still missed that Bitcoin is a legal tender in that country, so now think about why they buy Bitcoin and not, say, gold or Swiss francs?

We can't really say that he is a dictator even if he joked once that he's the "World's Coolest Dictator"

Source: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/26/naybib-bukele-el-salvador-president-coolest-dictator

It may sound unusual to see a president trusted bitcoin so much and eventually bought 420 BTC using their country's money. Anyways, we can't say such things because we aren't in his shoes and ofcourse being a president, we can say they studied and vote for it before buying huge amounts of btc. And President Bukele is also a successful businessman so it's safe to say that he sees something about bitcoin than us before making such huge move.

But I can't deny that it's so insane to buy 420 BTC and it is so huge to buy it once and choosed to trust their funds in bitcoin.

The president is quite crazy to take this decision. Buying at a deep price of 420 BTC is a pretty big buy. The President of El Salvador is smart to take advantage of the unstable condition of bitcoin by increasing his bitcoin assets. We know El Salvador adopted bitcoin, and this is the trigger for bitcoin to start rising.
If the price of bitcoin continues to rise, Bukulele will profit, but if it drops from the entry price, maybe he will start buying again and so on.

It's good to know that BTC is being recognized on the government level. We must appreciate this rather than start criticism. Everything has some good and some bad aspects so rather than looking for Advantages and Disadvantages we must focus on what outcome we observe on recognition of BTC on the government level. Yes, it's true that all the policies must be carefully reviewed upon making it live.

@DdmrDdmr, the story of Bulgaria's BTC is long over, if the Bulgarian finance minister is to be believed their government has sold BTC on several occasions and it all ended in April 2018. The number of BTCs sold was never released (I was unable to find it), but it was reported that the sales consultant was Deloitte with the assistance of the FBI - hardly a single minister would have invented something like that. The site you linked obviously needs to correct the data regarding the fact that some countries own BTC - Ukrainian or Georgian politicians who have privately invested in BTC cannot represent the government/country as an investor.

As for the people from Bulgaria, see this comment, and for a news source check this post.

Actually he made good decision for her country, but the news seems to be new now, but from my own understanding I'm not convinced that mr President purchase the 420 bitcoin recently, maybe it has happened long time ago, actually investing in bitcoin is wise ideas but it depends the time frame we purchase and how long is going to stay before huge profit will be made.

actually this will be a good moment to follow it, of course with this news it will stimulate others to do the same so that prices increase and the market looks better. that way it will make its popularity even higher and hopefully it will have an even bigger effect, like that and so on

I don't understand what you are saying here? The price dips usually happens because of the market volatility and the El Salvador took advantage of this and turn in into opportunity to buy some more bitcoin at the dip or say at an average price of $58k approximately.But what do you mean by it's already dip ? You will be having profits in the long run only if you are able to hold through all these dips and not panic sell.

News about bitcoin on El Salvador becomes boring and stale after quite some time, but still I see some posts appearing here and there whenever they buy bitcoins. Perhaps it is because they are the first country to openly state that they are buying the cryptocurrency, moreso than the actual relevance of the matter (which isn't really high IMO). But yeah, I still think it's great that they're committed to buying at the dips, although I believe that that does not require any press release, news articles, or even a forum post whenever they do.

I guess only Bukele knows where did he get the funds to buy bitcoin, or maybe he used to bought bitcoin with his own pocket when it was still very cheap and now he's reaping the fruit of his investment. Because we all know even before bitcoin's adoption in El Salvador, Bukele is already a bitcoin enthusiast and this is the reason why he pushed through a bill to accept bitcoin as a legal tender because he knows a lot about crypto and its potentials than any other Salvadorian citizen.

I am sure that he is not a new person in Bitcoin, and his also government may be also very popular and have been encouraged in Bitcoin after a long time.
And that is why they are so brave in taking this decision.
I am not sure that they will do this risky thing without any management, controls, and also consideration about the characteristics of Bitcoin itself and for the future, for the condition when BTC faces bearish time again. They must have something that we don't know what exactly they meant and they can maintain to make survive with this decision.
This is a big decision for a country.

And, if this is really successful, this will really drive followed by many more countries in the world, of course those that are ready with this

This is exactly what i was thinking after reading the headline, is he invested from his own pocket or he is playing with the taxpayers money and he is particular about getting all the headlines and he is getting them. I wonder what is the ground reality and how the people in El Salvador are responding to his investment in Bitcoin. There were many resistance when he introduced Bitcoin and he might not be that popular among the normal citizens.

This means if they are buying, we know its already the dip, we should put some longs here with 100% of our portfolio! Well be richer than we think!

It's easy to try and act gimmicky when you're spending other peoples money. I can only wonder what sort of projects and social benefits (new roads?) might have been possible in this country with this sum of money, instead of paying off speculators for little real benefit to the tax payers. It also seems incredible wasteful to buy in such large sums, although he might just be grandstanding, when he could buy much smaller amounts periodically instead of waiting for these elusive "dips" where you never can tell the bottom. I guess he is still chasing newspaper headlines and populism which in order to get re-elected next time, without actually fixing much else in the country.

At the risk of repeating myself, El Salvador as above dont have their own currency, they are
or have been at the mercy of the $ an over the last 18 months or so because the US has been
printing $'s it leaves ES with no other choice than to try an alternative



I am wondering also why he is constantly referred to as a dictator?


And I'm wondering which country you think has zero poverty? there have been
many discussions regarding poverty and the wealth divide on the forum.
What is critical is proper infrastructure, education and job development to give
more people a chance to a better standard of living, reduce the amount of
people on the poverty line and then tackle it more.

If Bitcoin can eventually go towards solving some problems in the country the
presidents decision will have been a success.

Actually, that information is still being echoed in many sites as real (i.e. https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/treasuries/#countries), although perhaps somebody from Bulgaria may have further insights as to whether the alleged decommissioned 213,519 bitcoins are indeed still in possession of the government, and more specifically, is there any public record that shows this on their balance.

El Salvador though has part, if not all, of those BTCs invested in the Trust related to the Chivo System. I haven’t read anywhere that these purchases are a separate balance to the Trust itself, so in that sense, they are largely tied to ops, and not so much as a reserve I’d say.

I assume they have dictatorship. If they do, then it's against their polity. What's the reason they would want a currency that distinguishes money from state? This is exactly what bitcoin does.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. The citizens can use a payment method with no intermediates and I find this against their polity.

Proof or just assumption?

I am afraid I can't agree with you that Bitcoin is against polity of Salvador. Everything is completely opposite to this, some months ago, Salvador accepted Bitcoin as one of a national currency, so now it is completely legalised there.
What is more, Salvador is not the only country that buys crypto. The country with the biggest number of Bitcoin on account is Bulgaria.

That's right, dictatorship is not bad at all if the policy is to help the economy of the country to improve.

Supporting bitcoin by legalizing it and buying it tells complete confidence from this country.
Actually, I think the title is a bit misleading since the BTC that they bought is not for the personal funds of the president, it's for the country.

We can conclude that on the one hand, his priorities don't make much sense ($4 million pet clinic), while on the other hand his if we can call it "stubbornness" still results in El Salvador doing what many have only dreamed of - that Bitcoin becomes a legal tender in one country. I personally cannot say at this point whether he is a positive or a negative for his people, but he definitely has the guts to pull moves that seem controversial - of course depending on the angle from which they are viewed.

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We cannot know that members of their parliament do not understand what Bitcoin is, maybe the president taught them the basics, because he is very well versed in everything related to Bitcoin. In addition, although the prevailing opinion is that the whole process of implementing Bitcoin in El Salvador was done hastily, many forget that for more than a year there was a Bitcoin Beach project in that country that turned an entire area into a Bitcoin zone. I think everything the president does has a foothold in long-term plans that are in line with the laws in that country.


It is an illogical move from our perspective, but perhaps it is just one of the projects happening in that country that we do not know about. However, I have already written that this money could certainly have been spent on some other essential things, but obviously the animal welfare society in that country has a very strong lobby🐱

Nayib Bukele  really stuck his head out there, because his decision to accept Bitcoin as a legal tender, angered the "Puppet Masters" of this world. They already threatened him by warning him that international loans to his country will stop, if he continue on his new path. (Giving them the finger, earns him points in my good books)

I am not saying that dictatorship is correct, but his decision to give Bitcoin an opportunity to help with remittance to his country and to reduce banking fees in a country filled with poverty, is definitely commendable. 

That we could estimate from the nation infrastructure development in few years and the residents will most probably make us aware about the future scenario that how the profits were being utilised by the government to improve the country's financial conditions over the table.They have made some huge profits in these time like cashing out the profits but yes we can't figure out how the funds will be used until they only post about buying the dips an all that.But hope they are used in right Manner and no scam allegations rise in El Salvador for funds inappropriate use.

I suspect that this will encourage its people to buy bitcoins as well. pretty good when he bought bitcoin and it went up to $60k. however, The president of El Salvador probably won't announce that when the price drops, but may buy more.
it's just that, if it's like this, I'm afraid that if the price of bitcoin decreases, many will give negative comments about this. It's good that he has already taken advantage of it, but if not, it will be a lesson to his people that bitcoin has huge fluctuations. however, I hope the price of bitcoin continues to rise so that people will be more impressed with cryptocurrencies.

I don't think that he comes up as a dictator, as he didn't force people to use bitcoin and removed the regular financial systems, he just gave them an option and incentive to use it and bring in many crypto investors and companies  to the country or at least i think that what they are aiming for since it is starting to become a safe haven for crypto and bitcoin, and for the most part he has been right and logic with his decisions and they don't seem to come as a form of dictatorships, otherwise i am really starting to see that he is making his presence and trying to come out as an influencer and making announcements about his moves and investments to somewhat to try to influence the market.  

Though it is admirable to see a dictator making efforts to put his country on a modern fortier, then also if I were citizen of this country I would have been terrified by this news. I would have been happy before, but this guy is buying many times now and not to forget this is nations money collected from the taxes and needs to be used for the funding of national development. I am not sure how daring they are to put it all in the bitcoin itself.

What if someone sees this as an opportunity and sell their btc and we see sharp fall in the prices? This would be terrifying tbh, you will loose the country's development fund and salaries of government employees. Not sure how they are playing this game.

Yes, but I'm still wondering how the parliament has easily bought Bitcoin, a technology more than half of its members might not have even thoroughly understood, during the quick dip as if tens of millions of dollars is a small amount of money which requires no lengthy deliberation, processes, and approval. It's as if the cash is just lying there available waiting for a dip to happen.


Is a pet clinic a luxury or an urgent need for a country like El Salvador? I have nothing against pets, but some much richer countries do not have such clinics either - I believe that this money could be spent much better on building hospitals for people, kindergartens, schools...