Alejandro Zelaya, a minister of El Salvador, dismissed media criticism of the country's Bitcoin holdings. El Salvador's Minister of Finance, Alejandro Zelaya, responded to recent media criticism of the country's plan to invest in Bitcoin (BTC) by calling the claims of financial concerns "very shallow." So, how much has El Salvador lost in Bitcoin?
Zelaya gave an emotional response to a journalist's query regarding the government's response to Bitcoin's precipitous decline: Bitcoin itself is being criticized, not El Salvador's policy, and this is very evident. They [the media outlet] are not interested in what happens to our economy, what happens to our people, or what happens with inflation; El Salvador is what they are least interested in.
In answer to a journalist's inquiry on the government's reaction to Bitcoin's sharp decrease, Zelaya gave an emotional response:
It is clear that Bitcoin itself is under fire, not El Salvador's foreign policy. El Salvador is the country in which they [the media outlet] are least interested; neither our economy nor our people nor the inflation rate are of interest to them.
The official emphasized the unjustness of claims that the country's budget had lost about $40 million as a result of the cryptocurrency rate decline from the peak at which El Salvador purchased its first batch for $60,300 per BTC in October 2021. Zelaya mentioned the speculative potential of a BTC recovery: I've mentioned it numerous times: We haven't sold the coins, thus the alleged loss of $40 million hasn't happened.
El Salvador now possesses 2,301 Bitcoin, or almost $50 million as of publication. That is less than half of what the country invested in Bitcoin through purchases made in October 2021 and May 2022, when BTC was valued $30,700, in fiat equivalent terms.
BTC's price has been falling since it reached its all-time high in November 2021 (roughly $69,000), and it has been getting worse recently as a result of a number of shake-ups, including the failure of Terra (LUNA, now L, and the mishap of a significant DeFi lender, Celsius, as well as the rise in global inflation.
