El Salvador intends to move a substantial portion of its Bitcoin holdings to a cold wallet. This wallet would be housed in a physical vault within the country, President Nayib Bukele revealed Friday.
“You can call it our first Bitcoin piggy bank,” he said in an X post.
We’ve decided to transfer a big chunk of our #Bitcoin to a cold wallet, and store that cold wallet in a physical vault within our national territory.
You can call it our first #Bitcoin piggy bank
It’s not much, but it’s honest work pic.twitter.com/dqzedykxT1
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) March 14, 2024
Cold wallets, or hardware wallets, offer a secure way to store private keys offline. Placing a cold wallet in a physical vault enhances security by shielding it from physical risks such as theft or fire.
El Salvador’s Bitcoin Holdings Hit $407M
As per Bukele’s statement, El Salvador’s bitcoin holdings were valued at about $407m as of Thursday.
His announcement comes as Bitcoin hit a new record above $72,000 this week. The recent surge is fueled by various factors, including the introduction of Spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US and the anticipated Bitcoin Halving in April.
Further, El Salvador’s Bitcoin investment is yielding impressive returns. The country has reaped substantial profits compared to its initial purchase price. Its crypto treasury has soared to over $74m in profit after the recent surge in Bitcoin’s value, according to the Bukele Tracker.
Bitcoin Embrace Leading to Wealth Surge
That’s not all. Industry experts foresee El Salvador, despite being one of Central America’s smallest yet most densely populated nations, potentially emerging as one of the wealthiest globally due to its significant Bitcoin holdings.
The country’s Bitcoin journey began in Sept. 2021, when it made history by becoming the first to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. Later, on Nov. 16, 2022, Bukele declared that the government would begin buying 1 BTC daily.
Venture capitalist Tim Draper predicted recently: “Within maybe 30 or 40 years, El Salvador will have gone from the poorest, most crime ridden country, to maybe one of the richest, most innovative countries in the world, just in that period of time. And this is just because they embraced Bitcoin.”
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