El Salvador adds 162 Bitcoins to national holdings

A cold wallet reportedly belonging to the government of El Salvador has been purchasing one Bitcoin every day since March 16, adding 162 Bitcoin to the country’s Bitcoin holdings.

According to data from blockchain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence, the address marked as a cold wallet belonging to the government of El Salvador currently contains 5,851 Bitcoins (BTC) with a market value of $356.4 million.

The wallet’s entry chart shows that it has been adding a single Bitcoin every day since March 16. The last installment was made a few hours ago at a cost of $60,500. However, there have been a few days where the wallet has made tiny BTC purchases worth less than $100.

According to crypto analyst EmberCN, the average cost of El Salvador’s BTC holdings is around $44,835, giving the country a floating profit of $93.45 million.

The purchases are part of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s promise to buy one Bitcoin every day until the cryptocurrency becomes “unaffordable.” On the day the purchases began, El Salvador transferred 5,689 BTC to a cold storage wallet, worth $386 million at the time. Bukele described the wallet as the country’s first “Bitcoin piggy bank.”

The South American country has created a mempool space that allows the public to audit crypto assets in an effort to create greater transparency regarding Bitcoin ownership.

Additionally, Bukele’s government recently proposed using crypto for trade with Russia, an idea El Salvador put forward as a way to bypass sanctions imposed on Russia by the US and its allies over the country’s ongoing war with Ukraine.

BTC 24-hour price chart – August 23 | Source: crypto.news

El Salvador recognizes the US dollar as its national currency, making it difficult to trade with Russia, which has severely restricted access to the US dollar due to sanctions. Meanwhile, Bitcoin is up 0.8% in the last 24 hours and 5.1% in seven days. It currently has a market capitalization of over $1.2 trillion, more than 53% of the value of the entire crypto market.