El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele confirmed via Twitter Monday that the Latin American nation has bought the “Bitcoin price dip,” exchanging dollars for Bitcoin at a time he believes it remains undervalued by the global market.
The price of Bitcoin was around $45,700 dollars at the time of Bukele’s tweet announcing the purchase, down from highs near $50,000 earlier in the week.
On September 6, the day before Bitcoin was officially declared legal tender in El Salvador, the president announced that the country bought its first 400 BTC, at the time saying he planned on buying “a lot more” with government funds. With that historic announcement, El Salvador became the first country in the world to publicly put Bitcoin on its balance sheet.
Bitcoin was declared legal tender in El Salvador the next day. Its price declined from around $51,000 down to $43,000 when President Nayib Bukele announced again that El Salvador had bought the dip. Bringing the country’s total Bitcoin reserves from 400 to 550 BTC.
Monday’s purchase brought El Salvador’s Bitcoin reserves from 550 to 700 BTC, with a price of about $31,198,397 at the time of writing.
The Bitcoin price continued to decline to around $44,700 after Bukele’s announcement, until around 6 AM EST Monday morning.
The news comes at a time when international figures like Edward Snowden are urging nations to embrace Bitcoin. After El Salvador made Bitcoin legal tender, the famous whistleblower highlighted that Bitcoin favors those that adopt it early, thereby putting pressure on other nations, which will be penalized for being laggards.
Among the interested second nations to publicly adopt Bitcoin and pursue Bitcoin mining are Laos and Ukraine.
The world is watching this experiment, and Bitcoiners are eager to see what country will be next to adopt Bitcoin as nations are forced to compete or be left behind. The game-theoretic prisoner's dilemma has begun in global politics, and nation states that adopt Bitcoin first are at a great advantage.