El Salvador Reports Millionaire Loss Due to Bitcoin Usage

The continuous drop in the price of Bitcoin, imposed as legal tender by the Government of Nayib Bukele, in El Salvador, has been denounced by civil society organizations in recent days, just at the time, as this Thursday when the cryptocurrency marks 21 000 dollars per unit, 50 percent less than a year ago.

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Since last week, the cryptocurrency has fallen by nearly 10 000 dollars and its value has more than halved since the beginning of the year, to which last Monday fell 15 percent, its biggest one-day plunge since March 2020. So far this year, it has lost half its value and more than 20 percent since last Friday.

With the recent drop in the value of the virtual currency, the value of El Salvador's reserves now stands at 52 million dollars. This represents a loss of 50.6 percent. In total, the Government of Nayib Bukele bought more than 2 000 Bitcoins for the equivalent, at the time of purchase, of 103 million dollars.

According to local media, the total amount of bitcoins purchased by the government is unknown since purchases are only announced through President Bukele's personal Twitter account. The last purchase was on May 9, when it invested 15 million dollars of public funds in buying 500 bitcoins.

On the other hand, the government said there had been no losses because no such virtual currencies have been sold.

However, opposition congresswoman, Claudia Ortiz, denounced that "the point is not whether bitcoins go down or up. We are a poor country whose government used millions of people's money for a failed bet that did not improve their lives. The money could have been used to support the most vulnerable families and not for a whim of crypto-influencers."

At the same time, the Emerging Market Bond Indicator (EMBI), which measures Country Risk, rose more than 1.5 percentage points in a single day and closed Monday reached 24.62 percent, while bond prices fell Wednesday to 9.41 percent.