El Salvador placed a big bet on bitcoin exactly a year ago, making it an official legal tender alongside the U.S. dollar and filling its coffers with the cryptocurrency in a series of purchases. However, the country appears to be facing significant losses related to its bitcoin buys, at least on paper.

SIX DAYS BEFORE El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law went into effect, Mario Gómez was dragged from his car, handcuffed, and detained. There was no arrest warrant for the software developer, who had taken to his personal Twitter account to inform the Salvadoran public about the cryptocurrency that was soon going to become the official tender in the Central American country, while questioning the government’s motives for adopting it.

Argentina has a population of 45 million, while Switzerland can claim roughly 8.6 million citizens. Where it gets interesting is that the Swiss franc is one of the world’s most circulated currencies, while the Argentine peso isn’t even the currency of choice in Argentina. Given the country’s history of devaluation, Argentines go to great lengths to exchange their pesos for dollars as a way of mitigating the horrors of devaluation.

On Saturday, June 18, Bitcoin underwent another major price correction slipping under $20,000 for the first time since December 2020. As of press time, BTC is trading at $18,548 with a market cap of $354 billion. Panic has spread all across the crypto market making investors uncomfortable about the recent downside. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele has asked to take a chill pill and maintain patience in such testing times. In a message on Twitter, President Bukele wrote:

In brief: A lot of people are sweating over the tumbling price of Bitcoin, which was just $800 away from $20,000 only a few hours ago, but few have as much to lose as El Salvador. It adopted BTC as an official currency last year and holds 2,301 Bitcoin valued around $50.1 million at the time of writing. Unfortunately, the country paid a total of $105.6 million for the digital currency. Its Finance Minister isn't worried, though: he says the crash poses 'extremely minimal' fiscal risk to the South American nation.

The discussion will focus on Bitcoin along with other subjects like crypto’s role in the digital economy.

When El Salvador officially made Bitcoin legal tender in September 2021, José Bonilla was one of the first citizens to sign up for a government-backed digital wallet that lets anyone use the cryptocurrency. The 23-year-old Salvadoran, who runs a shoe store with his family in the tourist town of Concepción de Ataco, was looking forward to trying out the technology. He’d heard that it would reduce costs and speed up payments.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele wants to offer citizenship to those who invest in the small Central American nation. Recall that in September, El Salvador became the first country to recognize bitcoin as a legally recognized currency, and seems to want to continue with reforms to attract foreign capital. El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele said in a tweet on Sunday that he plans to introduce a series of reforms including offering citizenship to foreign investors.

El Salvador plans to issue its first “bitcoin bond” next month, finance minister Alejandro Zelaya said on February 8. Speaking on a local news program, Zelaya said that the government is planning to have the bond “totally ready” for issuance between March 15 and March 20.

The Biden administration imposed sanctions on two Salvadoran officials for allegedly offering privileges to gangs in exchange for a reduction in homicides and political support.

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said the Central American country had acquired an additional 150 bitcoins after the digital currency's value slumped again, enlarging his bet on the cryptocurrency despite criticism.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said bitcoin should not be used as legal tender in El Salvador and urged the Central American country to strengthen the regulation and supervision of its newly established payment ecosystem.

At a geothermal power plant near El Salvador’s Tecapa volcano, 300 computers whir inside a trailer as they make complex mathematical calculations day and night verifying transactions for the cryptocurrency bitcoin.

El Salvador plans to build the world's first "Bitcoin City" which will be funded initially by bitcoin bonds, President Nayib Bukele said on Saturday, doubling down on the Central American country's bet on the crypto currency.

El Salvador’s bitcoin roll-out has had its up and downs since the country officially made it legal tender on September 7th. In the past month, residents have posted both the good and bad of bitcoin adoption. It has been chiefly favorable as citizens settle into their new standard of having a cryptocurrency as a legal tender, alongside the existing dollar legal tender.

On September 7, 2021, El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law granting the currency legal tender status went into effect. Remarkably, in just one month, there are more Salvadorans with bitcoin wallets than traditional bank accounts.

Two weeks ago, El Salvador officially began using Bitcoin as legal tender. Since then, I've seen stories on Twitter of people using Bitcoin to buy breakfast, clothing, and more, but most of those anecdotes seem to be from journalists and tourists who travelled to El Salvador for the launch of

The system doesn’t work, the currency crashed, and the public hates it.

It took 40 years for 30% of El Salvadorians to get a bank account, but just 10 days for about 20% of them to get a bitcoin account through downloading the Chivo wallet. “1.1 million Salvadorans already use the Chivo wallet (and we haven’t enabled 65% of phone models yet),” said Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s president, before adding:

El Salvador's bitcoin adoption could totally revolutionize the country's remittance payment rails.