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El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele announced on Tuesday amid his country’s digital currency rollout that it had purchased approximately $7 million in bitcoin — while mocking the International Monetary Fund.
“Buying the dip,” Bukele wrote on Twitter, saying “150 new coins” had been added. The message came just after bitcoin briefly plunged from a little more than $50,000 to around $47,000, which would place the value of El Salvador’s purchase in a range of $7 million to $7.5 million.
“It appears the discount is ending,” Bukele added later in the day, before tagging an official account for the IMF and claiming the new purchase represented less than a third of his country’s bitcoin reserves. “Thanks for the dip @IMFNews . We saved a million in printed paper. El Salvador now holds 550 bitcoin.”
El Salvador this week became the first country in the world to adopt bitcoin as legal tender, meaning businesses are required to accept it. Analysts with the United Nations’ IMF
Tuesday’s fluctuation in the price of cryptocurrencies was mostly unrelated to the news out of El Salvador and the IMF’s grumbling. Traders have been skittish as bitcoin comes within 20 percent of its $64,000 record-high set in April, which was followed by a quick decline to $29,000 in July.