El Salvador at it again, Nayib Bukele announces purchase of 150 Bitcoin
While the entire cryptocurrency industry is reeling under a massive dip, President of El Salvador once again managed to find the silver lining in this storm. Earlier today, Nayib Bukele announced on Twitter that the island country had once again bought the dip as Bitcoin continued on its downward spiral.
According to Bukele, 150 Bitcoin tokens were added to El Salvador’s treasury today, at an average USD price of $48,670. This put the total purchase value for the latest haul at over $7.3 million at the time of writing.
Consequently, this brought El Salvador’s total Bitcoin accumulation to 1,270 BTC, which was worth $59.6 million at press time. The president had previously announced the purchase of 420 BTCs when the market had last shown bearish overtones.
The Central American nation was the first country in the world to officiate Bitcoin as legal tender earlier this year, and its strategy since then has clearly been to buy the dip.
Crypto market mayhem
And a dip it was. Bitcoin slipped below $50,000 earlier today, with a total 24-hour valuation loss of 17.27% noted at press time. This is the lowest price range the digital asset has witnessed since it attained a new all-time high of $68,000 in the first week of November.
Other crypto assets have also been witnessing similar price depreciation. BTC alone liquidated up to $190 million within an hour earlier today, while the whole crypto industry’s market cap had lost over 16% of its valuation. The financial blog Zerohedge attributed this liquidation to the stock market, as it saw “the worst December opening performance for US stocks in 20 years.”
The current liquidation is also the highest since September, according to Chinese journalist Colin Wu. While El Salvador’s purchase amount was low at $48,670, the actual bottom was registered at $42,000 when Bitcoin slipped 37% from its ATH earlier today. This was also acknowledged by Bukele, who tweeted,
In any case, at the time of writing, Bitcoin’s price was still hovering below El Salvador’s purchase price, indicating that El Salvador’s tokens were trading at a loss.
Ever the bitcoin critic, CEO and chief global strategist of Euro Pacific Capital Inc., Was quick to post his thoughts on this development. He said,
“There’s a lot more dips coming. How much taxpayer money do you intend to waste?”
On the other hand, supporters applauded Bukele’s decision to buy the dip. While Blockstream’s Samson Moc called it a “boss move,” Spencer Schiff told Bukele, “…my dad’s reply is your signal to buy more.”
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Anjali Jain, Khareem Sudlow