El Salvador will set aside thousands of bitcoins worth $407 million as the cryptocurrency surges again to record levels, President Nayib Bukele announced Thursday on his X account.
“We have decided to transfer a large part of our bitcoins to a cold wallet and to store this cold wallet in a physical safe on our national territory
, declared the president.
To discover
In terms of heritage, bitcoin raises many questions
“You can call it our first bitcoin piggy bank
,” he added.
A
“cold wallet”
protects
cryptocurrency
investments by keeping them offline to prevent hacks.
Nayib Bukele shared a screenshot of the investment showing a total of 5,689.7 bitcoins, with a valuation of $406.6 million.
“It's not much, but it's honest work
,” he said, while bitcoin exceeded $73,000 on Thursday before falling slightly, still buoyed by the fallout from the launch of a new investment product indexed to its price on the American markets.
In September 2021, El Salvador was the first country in the world to adopt it as one of its legal currencies.
But cryptocurrency has not convinced the entire population: according to a survey by the University of Central America (UCA), 88% of Salvadorans did not use it in their transactions in 2023.