The country’s finance minister claimed that El Salvador has not suffered any losses from its Bitcoin holdings since it has yet sell the cryptocurrency. El Salvador’s ongoing crypto market crash presents a “very minimal” fiscal risk, according to the country’s finance minister. El Salvador has bought millions of Bitcoin to fund its treasury.
“When they tell us that El Salvador is at high fiscal risk because of Bitcoin, the only thing I do is smile,” Alejandro Zelaya, El Salvador’s finance Minister, said during a press conference. This was per a Deutsche Welle report.
He said that “any serious economist should feel exactly the same, because it’s a very superficial analysis. They speak only from ignorance,” and added “the fiscal risk to be extremely minimal.”
Since last year, the market value of Bitcoin that El Salvador has acquired has fallen from around $103 million to $50 million.
El Salvador was the first country to legalize Bitcoin as a currency in September 2013. This was despite harsh criticisms from the International Monetary Fund. The Central American nation has acquired 2,301 Bitcoins and spent $103 million on ten purchases.
El Salvador last bought Bitcoin on May 9, 2017. President Nayib Bukele stated that the government had purchased 500 more BTC as a result of the market’s decline. The purchase was worth approximately $15.3 million at that time and is now worth about $10 million.
Bitcoin’s price has plunged more than 26% since then, from $30,000 to $22,220 as of the writing of this article.
No sale, no loss
Zelaya, who was also present at the press conference, also mentioned Deutsche Welle’s earlier estimate of El Salvador’s Bitcoin portfolio having lost around $40 million, based upon Monday’s cryptocurrency price.
Zelaya stated, “I have repeated it repeatedly: an alleged Loss of $40 Million has not occurred because the coins have not been sold.”
According to a Reuters report, he said that forty-five million dollars is not even 0.5% of our national budget.
The minister also criticized the IMF for repeatedly asking El Salvador to abandon its Bitcoin law. He also criticised the mainstream media’s biased reporting on the country’s adoption.
Zelaya stated that there is “clear criticism of Bitcoin as such, and not of El Salvador’s strategy,” adding that “there has been a lot of excitement lately about our Bitcoin strategy.”
Minister says media aren’t interested in the state of our economy. They don’t care about what happens to our people or what happens to inflation.
U.S. legislators have also targeted El Salvador’s Bitcoin ambitions with bills currently moving through the Senate, and House. These bills are aimed at protecting America’s economy from President Bukele’s “careless gamble.”
