Last night, El Salvador increased its BTC reserve by nearly 17% with 1,090 new bitcoins. Was this the result of a new purchase or a simple transfer?
El Salvador reportedly purchased an additional 1,090 bitcoins
As BTC fell back below $90,000, Nayib Bukele posted a tweet overnight showing that El Salvador had added just over 1,090 bitcoins to its strategic national reserve:
With the total now standing at 7,474.37 units, this new addition represents a 16.82% increase in the size of the country’s reserve, bringing its estimated value to $668 million.
In this case, the transaction in question today consumed 28 UTXOs to consolidate them into three new ones:
Almost a year ago, El Salvador finally reached an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to obtain financing. This agreement involved concessions on pro-Bitcoin initiatives in the country. For several months now, the question has been whether the country is actually continuing to buy BTC, or whether the movements observed are in fact simply transfers between unofficial and official addresses.
On several occasions, however, the IMF has maintained that El Salvador is honoring its commitments by no longer purchasing new bitcoins, as Rodrigo Valdés, director of the Western Hemisphere Department, stated last April:
With regard to El Salvador, I can confirm that the country continues to comply with its commitment not to accumulate bitcoins in the fiscal sector, which is an essential performance criterion.
Mining revenue? Consolidation of previously purchased bitcoins? Genuine purchases and a defiant attitude towards the IMF? El Salvador’s actual BTC holdings are therefore difficult to estimate, but the fact is that today, the Salvadoran government ranks as the fifth largest holder of bitcoins in the world, according to official figures.
Meanwhile, the price of BTC stands at $89,900 at the time of writing, down 5.9% over the last 24 hours.
