President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador announced late yesterday evening that the country bought the dip with another 80 BTC added to the national treasury for an average cost of $19,000.
In total, El Salvador has a total bitcoin treasury of 2,381 BTC, currently valued around $46.1 million. The nation-state has slowly been accumulating bitcoin since its first bitcoin buy on September 6, 2021 when it purchased 200 BTC and became the first country in the world to hold bitcoin on its balance sheet three months after declaring bitcoin was legal tender.
Of late, the Bitcoin and broader cryptocurrency ecosystem has witnessed what is being referred to as a “contagion” in which cascading failures of one institution have bled into another amid market corrections. Due to this effect, institutional and nation-state holders of scale in the bitcoin ecosystem came under scrutiny for continuing to hold bitcoin under the circumstances – El Salvador being one of the criticized holders.
Similarly, Michael Saylor was interviewed to discuss whether or not he regretted the bitcoin strategy his software analytics firm, MicroStrategy, chose to adopt. Yet, in the same light of Bukele, Saylor continues to buy the dip and holds strong to the ethos of dollar-cost-averaging – the continued accumulation of an asset overtime, regardless of price.
As prominent figures like Bukele and Saylor continue to accumulate large amounts of bitcoin over time, they will continue to be criticized when the price is not going up. However, the important thing to note is they are not trading bitcoin. If the purpose was to buy and sell bitcoin within a short period of time, then sure, criticize the bad timing. But as it stands, El Salvador and MicroStrategy are clearly continuing to look through a longer time horizon than they are usually given credit for.