As Bitcoin (BTC) dipped below $90,000 in the early hours today, the drop wiped out more than $1 billion in positions over the past 24 hours. Yet, El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele doesn’t seem too worried as he unveiled the purchase of an additional 1,090 BTC today.
El Salvador buys Bitcoin dip
In an X post published earlier today, President Bukele revealed that the country of El Salvador, in addition to its daily 1 BTC purchase, had bought an extra 1,090 BTC to benefit from the top cryptocurrency’s price pullback.
According to the screenshot shared by President Bukele, El Salvador’s Bitcoin holdings now stand at 7,474.37 BTC, valued at slightly more than $688 million per current market prices. The country has bought 1,098.19 BTC over the past week.
It should be recalled that El Savaldor was the first sovereign nation in the world to have an active BTC accumulation strategy. In September 2021, the Central American country became the first nation-state to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender.
While El Salvador’s Bitcoin play has inspired other countries in the world to develop their own digital assets strategy, it has also drawn the ire of some supranational agencies such as the IMF.
Is BTC ideal as legal tender?
In January 2022, the IMF had urged El Salvador to remove Bitcoin as legal tender due to the cryptocurrency’s excessive volatility. For any currency to work as an efficient legal tender, it should ideally have minimal volatility such as the USD, AED, CAD, or INR which show a deviation of 2% to 3% on the most volatile days.
However, price swings of 10% to 15% are pretty common when it comes to BTC. The latest example is today’s price meltdown, where the top digital asset is down more than 5% over the past 24 hours.
That said, cryptocurrency’s wild price swings have not deterred countries and corporations around the world from developing exposure to digital assets. For example, Himalayan country of Bhutan recently became the first country to accept BTC for all tourist services.
As far as corporations are concerned, the enthusiasm is not just limited to Bitcoin. Companies like BitMine Immersion have made a name for themselves as Ethereum-only (ETH) treasury company, holding more than 3.5 million ETH according to latest data.
