The president of El Salvador just bout 420 BTC!

[aoluain]

You can't really say this is a dictator, can you?

I believe that we cannot tell whether he is a dictator or not only by judging his policies regarding Bitcoin.

I like his policy regarding Bitcoin, but when I read criticisms of him, I looked for information and there are several sources that point to him having an authoritarian tendency:

Bukele Speeds Up Moves Towards Authoritarianism in El Salvador

Meet Latin America’s First Millennial Dictator

The U.S. can stop El Salvador’s slide to authoritarianism. Time to act.

Also, why would a dictator want to promote Bitcoin, a currency which is against their polity?

Why do you say that? El Salvador does not have its own currency, it cannot print massively, it has been working for a long time with the USD, and switching to Bitcoin is profitable for them. It has much more to gain than to lose, unlike the USA or the EU.

At the risk of repeating myself, El Salvador as above dont have their own currency, they are
or have been at the mercy of the $ an over the last 18 months or so because the US has been
printing $'s it leaves ES with no other choice than to try an alternative

You can't really say this is a dictator, can you?

Who's saying he is? As far as I know he's their president.

I can't understand how they're so sure it'll go upwards.

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I am wondering also why he is constantly referred to as a dictator?

I wonder if any of that hahaha profit will go towards the poverty-stricken in that country, or to crime regulation. I mean, I do appreciate El Salvador accepting bitcoin, but I am interested to see how much of that profit will go back to the people and how much is just a Twitter stunt.

And I'm wondering which country you think has zero poverty? there have been
many discussions regarding poverty and the wealth divide on the forum.
What is critical is proper infrastructure, education and job development to give
more people a chance to a better standard of living, reduce the amount of
people on the poverty line and then tackle it more.

If Bitcoin can eventually go towards solving some problems in the country the
presidents decision will have been a success.

[Fortify]

Nayib Bukele the president of El Salvador (the first country to recognize BTC as legal tender) just announced this on Twitter.

It's easy to try and act gimmicky when you're spending other peoples money. I can only wonder what sort of projects and social benefits (new roads?) might have been possible in this country with this sum of money, instead of paying off speculators for little real benefit to the tax payers. It also seems incredible wasteful to buy in such large sums, although he might just be grandstanding, when he could buy much smaller amounts periodically instead of waiting for these elusive "dips" where you never can tell the bottom. I guess he is still chasing newspaper headlines and populism which in order to get re-elected next time, without actually fixing much else in the country.

[jeldzrey16]

This means if they are buying, we know its already the dip, we should put some longs here with 100% of our portfolio! Well be richer than we think!

[ene1980]

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It's easy to try and act gimmicky when you're spending other peoples money. I can only wonder what sort of projects and social benefits (new roads?) might have been possible in this country with this sum of money, instead of paying off speculators for little real benefit to the tax payers. It also seems incredible wasteful to buy in such large sums, although he might just be grandstanding, when he could buy much smaller amounts periodically instead of waiting for these elusive "dips" where you never can tell the bottom. I guess he is still chasing newspaper headlines and populism which in order to get re-elected next time, without actually fixing much else in the country.

This is exactly what i was thinking after reading the headline, is he invested from his own pocket or he is playing with the taxpayers money and he is particular about getting all the headlines and he is getting them. I wonder what is the ground reality and how the people in El Salvador are responding to his investment in Bitcoin. There were many resistance when he introduced Bitcoin and he might not be that popular among the normal citizens.

[Rengga Jati]

Nayib Bukele the president of El Salvador (the first country to recognize BTC as legal tender) just announced this on Twitter.

I am sure that he is not a new person in Bitcoin, and his also government may be also very popular and have been encouraged in Bitcoin after a long time.
And that is why they are so brave in taking this decision.
I am not sure that they will do this risky thing without any management, controls, and also consideration about the characteristics of Bitcoin itself and for the future, for the condition when BTC faces bearish time again. They must have something that we don't know what exactly they meant and they can maintain to make survive with this decision.
This is a big decision for a country.

And, if this is really successful, this will really drive followed by many more countries in the world, of course those that are ready with this

[Sanitough]

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It's easy to try and act gimmicky when you're spending other peoples money. I can only wonder what sort of projects and social benefits (new roads?) might have been possible in this country with this sum of money, instead of paying off speculators for little real benefit to the tax payers. It also seems incredible wasteful to buy in such large sums, although he might just be grandstanding, when he could buy much smaller amounts periodically instead of waiting for these elusive "dips" where you never can tell the bottom. I guess he is still chasing newspaper headlines and populism which in order to get re-elected next time, without actually fixing much else in the country.

This is exactly what i was thinking after reading the headline, is he invested from his own pocket or he is playing with the taxpayers money and he is particular about getting all the headlines and he is getting them. I wonder what is the ground reality and how the people in El Salvador are responding to his investment in Bitcoin. There were many resistance when he introduced Bitcoin and he might not be that popular among the normal citizens.

I guess only Bukele knows where did he get the funds to buy bitcoin, or maybe he used to bought bitcoin with his own pocket when it was still very cheap and now he's reaping the fruit of his investment. Because we all know even before bitcoin's adoption in El Salvador, Bukele is already a bitcoin enthusiast and this is the reason why he pushed through a bill to accept bitcoin as a legal tender because he knows a lot about crypto and its potentials than any other Salvadorian citizen.

[dothebeats]

News about bitcoin on El Salvador becomes boring and stale after quite some time, but still I see some posts appearing here and there whenever they buy bitcoins. Perhaps it is because they are the first country to openly state that they are buying the cryptocurrency, moreso than the actual relevance of the matter (which isn't really high IMO). But yeah, I still think it's great that they're committed to buying at the dips, although I believe that that does not require any press release, news articles, or even a forum post whenever they do.

[worle1bm]

This means if they are buying, we know its already the dip, we should put some longs here with 100% of our portfolio! Well be richer than we think!

I don't understand what you are saying here? The price dips usually happens because of the market volatility and the El Salvador took advantage of this and turn in into opportunity to buy some more bitcoin at the dip or say at an average price of $58k approximately.But what do you mean by it's already dip ? You will be having profits in the long run only if you are able to hold through all these dips and not panic sell.

[Kimonoe]

News about bitcoin on El Salvador becomes boring and stale after quite some time, but still I see some posts appearing here and there whenever they buy bitcoins. Perhaps it is because they are the first country to openly state that they are buying the cryptocurrency, moreso than the actual relevance of the matter (which isn't really high IMO). But yeah, I still think it's great that they're committed to buying at the dips, although I believe that that does not require any press release, news articles, or even a forum post whenever they do.

actually this will be a good moment to follow it, of course with this news it will stimulate others to do the same so that prices increase and the market looks better. that way it will make its popularity even higher and hopefully it will have an even bigger effect, like that and so on

[GeorgeJohn]

Good for the president!!

He made a good decision, bitcoin will definitely going to hit the 100,000 $ mark at some point in the future, I say it will be within 1-2 years.

Another thing that I'm curious about is if he bought those bitcoins after reading Elon Musk's tweet...I hope that's not the case.

Actually he made good decision for her country, but the news seems to be new now, but from my own understanding I'm not convinced that mr President purchase the 420 bitcoin recently, maybe it has happened long time ago, actually investing in bitcoin is wise ideas but it depends the time frame we purchase and how long is going to stay before huge profit will be made.

[Lucius]

Actually, that information is still being echoed in many sites as real (i.e. https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/treasuries/#countries), although perhaps somebody from Bulgaria may have further insights as to whether the alleged decommissioned 213,519 bitcoins are indeed still in possession of the government, and more specifically, is there any public record that shows this on their balance.

@DdmrDdmr, the story of Bulgaria's BTC is long over, if the Bulgarian finance minister is to be believed their government has sold BTC on several occasions and it all ended in April 2018. The number of BTCs sold was never released (I was unable to find it), but it was reported that the sales consultant was Deloitte with the assistance of the FBI - hardly a single minister would have invented something like that. The site you linked obviously needs to correct the data regarding the fact that some countries own BTC - Ukrainian or Georgian politicians who have privately invested in BTC cannot represent the government/country as an investor.

As for the people from Bulgaria, see this comment, and for a news source check this post.

[SmokerFace]

It's good to know that BTC is being recognized on the government level. We must appreciate this rather than start criticism. Everything has some good and some bad aspects so rather than looking for Advantages and Disadvantages we must focus on what outcome we observe on recognition of BTC on the government level. Yes, it's true that all the policies must be carefully reviewed upon making it live.

[AakZaki]

The president is quite crazy to take this decision. Buying at a deep price of 420 BTC is a pretty big buy. The President of El Salvador is smart to take advantage of the unstable condition of bitcoin by increasing his bitcoin assets. We know El Salvador adopted bitcoin, and this is the trigger for bitcoin to start rising.
If the price of bitcoin continues to rise, Bukulele will profit, but if it drops from the entry price, maybe he will start buying again and so on.

[Rufsilf]

You can't really say this is a dictator, can you?

They bought 420 BTC, but I can't understand how they're so sure it'll go upwards. It's a whole country in the central America; their behavior seems like a teenager's who just learnt about the magic of Bitcoin in 2011 and bought bunch. I can't say Bitcoin is the least fluctuating asset at the moment and hence, the greatest investment strategy for a country.

Also, why would a dictator want to promote Bitcoin, a currency which is against their polity?

We can't really say that he is a dictator even if he joked once that he's the "World's Coolest Dictator"

Source: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/26/naybib-bukele-el-salvador-president-coolest-dictator

It may sound unusual to see a president trusted bitcoin so much and eventually bought 420 BTC using their country's money. Anyways, we can't say such things because we aren't in his shoes and ofcourse being a president, we can say they studied and vote for it before buying huge amounts of btc. And President Bukele is also a successful businessman so it's safe to say that he sees something about bitcoin than us before making such huge move.

But I can't deny that it's so insane to buy 420 BTC and it is so huge to buy it once and choosed to trust their funds in bitcoin.

[Lucius]

But I can't deny that it's so insane to buy 420 BTC and it is so huge to buy it once and choosed to trust their funds in bitcoin.

Good morning @Rufsilf, you seem to have woken up from some long sleep if you think 420 BTC is a lot because El Salvador has bought 1120 BTC so far -  do you think there is a word better than insane to describe one country buying so much BTC?

Maybe you still missed that Bitcoin is a legal tender in that country, so now think about why they buy Bitcoin and not, say, gold or Swiss francs?

Overall, El Salvador's treasury holds 1,120 bitcoin, according to official data, worth nearly $66 million.

[Ararbermas]

I hope bitcoin will go up more before this year end so that those people will not cry afterwards.. Lol because you know bitcoin seems not yet done seeking for strong support level at this moment in my view, i mean there's a chance it will attempt or restest those supports below the current price, and for sure if holders sees a strong bearish sign of course there will be a panic selling like what always happen. I hope not 420BTC?. that's massive!.

[shield132]

I can't understand how they're so sure it'll go upwards.

I'd say it's bluff: if it keeps going up, he did good. And if it drops, he'll just buy the dip.

No, you are wrong, if things keep going up, he will add the profit to the budget but if the things are going down, he will open short position on futures trading and will profit again (I'm joking Ofc).

I'm more curious how they store it: who has access? Many exchanges lost their funds to hackers, it would be nice if that doesn't happen to a (poor) country.

I guess the president is verified on Binance and holds the money
The most curious thing will be if he starts futures trading with high leverages. Do you wanna dip? Then do 2x leverage and it will look like you bought bitcoin at it's half price. I hope he won't use 10x leverage.

Idk why people are happy because of that but I would say, this is just a very poor decision/action. He acts like a person who is a kid but thinks that become a matured man (i.e. teen who tries to act cool but does all the shit in reality).

[7788bitcoin]

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although I believe that that does not require any press release, news articles, or even a forum post whenever they do.

When mere speculators gets media attention and news articles let the President of El Salvador get his moment of shine with these news because he took the bold step to implement a rule no one did by accepting Bitcoin as a legal tender and anything he does will get these press releases. How the people of El Salvador will be reacting to these news is a different question but anything positive is a good news during a rally  .

[hatshepsut93]

Bitcoin was created to take a way some power from centralized institutions, but now we have came full circle and are embracing a government pushing Bitcoin adoption to their people.

If Joe Biden will say tomorrow "I decided to buy 420 BTC", the rest of the government would have quite a debate about it and it's unclear if he would be able to do it or not, but this guy can buy any amount at any time and nothing can really stop him, so there's definitely some authoritarianism going here.

[24Kt]

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although I believe that that does not require any press release, news articles, or even a forum post whenever they do.

When mere speculators gets media attention and news articles let the President of El Salvador get his moment of shine with these news because he took the bold step to implement a rule no one did by accepting Bitcoin as a legal tender and anything he does will get these press releases. How the people of El Salvador will be reacting to these news is a different question but anything positive is a good news during a rally  .

That's part of their marketing only. Since El Salvador is known to be the first country to make bitcoin as legal tender, we will expect more support to the crypto market especially bitcoin. Just to show maybe, that their decision to join this market is worth it. Nowadays, promoting something is easy as you can freely publish it via your social media channels. It will also raise awareness on what they are doing to supplement their move towards crypto.