El Salvador President Nayib Bukele says the country has sent a huge chunk of its Bitcoin (BTC) stash to a cold wallet reserved in its territory.
Sending Bitcoin to a cold wallet is symbolic of plans to explore tighter security storage means and, in most cases, for longer-term storage. The El Salvador leader highlighted how the whole investment might not mean so much but noted that it is “honest work.”
Notably, Nayib Bukele did not disclose the exact cold wallet storage the Bitcoin units were sent to, but the community on X has applauded the display of transparency.
El Salvador is Neck Deeper into Bitcoin
El Salvador legalized Bitcoin as a legal tender in September 2021. Since then, the Central American country has maintained a Bitcoin investment strategy, holding unto this strategy to date.
As the major brain behind the Bitcoin strategy, Nayib Bukele’s revelation shows a deeper dive into its BTC ownership. He revealed that the wallet with the address tag “32ixEdV….wnqzo” received a total of 5,689.68 BTC. The wallet’s balance in dollar terms comes in at $406,607,665 at the time of the disclosure.
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
Nayib Bukele also noted that the country has transferred the cold wallet to a physical vault inside the national territory. He called this arrangement El Salvador’s first Bitcoin Piggy Bank. At the time it legalized the coin, El Salvador explored the creation of the Chivo wallet, a move that shows the country’s readiness to innovate in its Bitcoin adoption journey.
Notable Discrepancy
The total Bitcoin sent to the cold storage shows a very unique difference from the total coin profiled by the Nayib Tracker platform. This analytics platform pegs El Salvador’s Bitcoin stash at 2,864 BTC, worth about $195,243,061
The wallet sent to the cold storage is more than double this figure, leaving a speculative projection that El Salvador’s geothermal Bitcoin mining venture is contributing to the country’s overall stash.
Nayib Bukele shared the results of the first geothermal Bitcoin mining venture in October 2021. Current figures suggest El Salvador has added more BTC despite not making any official acquisition since the 484 Bitcoin it acquired on November 22, 2022, per Nayib Bukele tracker. This leaves mining as the potential source of the difference of more than 2825 BTC.