El Salvador Holds More Bitcoin (BTC) Than Expected

Bitcoin-forward Central American nation El Salvador this week moved $400 million of bitcoin (BTC) – “a big chunk” – into a cold wallet, President Nayib Bukele said in a post on X (formerly Twitter). Bukele referred to the new setup as “our first #Bitcoin piggy bank.” El Salvador stored the cold wallet “in a physical vault within our national territory,” he said, including a photo of a wallet that held 5,689.68 BTC, worth $411 million at Thursday’s prices. A bitcoin treasury of that size places El Salvador’s holdings far higher than previously thought. Even on Thursday, public trackers placed the nation’s trove at less than 3,000 BTC ($205 million). Earlier this week, Bukele teased that the country was not only buying BTC but also getting it by selling passports, through currency conversions for businesses, from mining and from government services.