El Salvador moves $400 million worth of bitcoin holdings to new 'cold wallet,' president says

Quick Take

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said the cold wallet is stored in a physical vault in the country.
Bukele revealed the wallet address that holds 5,689.69 BTC.

El Salvador has moved a “big chunk” of its bitcoin holdings to a cold wallet, the country's President Nayib Bukele said.

Bukele wrote in a post on X on Friday morning Asia time that the cold wallet setup represents the country’s “first bitcoin piggy bank.”

"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," he added.

The screenshot he posted alongside showed that the address had received 5,689.69 BTC, worth about $406 million at the time of the post. This amount is nearly double the holdings previously known from public trackers of the country's bitcoin holdings, estimated at $200 million.

Bukele had previously disclosed the country’s bitcoin holdings occasionally on social media whenever purchases were made. The latest disclosure marks the first occasion Bukele has linked his country’s holdings to a particular address.

El Salvador, under Bukele’s leadership, adopted bitcoin as its legal tender in 2021. Since that point, El Salvador also began buying bitcoin periodically.

Last month, Bukele was re-elected for his second term as president.

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