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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About Author

Timmy Shen is an Asia editor for The Block. Previously, he wrote about crypto and Web3 for Forkast.News from Taiwan after spending more than three years in Beijing covering finance, entertainment business and current affairs at Caixin Global and Chinese tech at TechNode. His China-related reporting has also appeared in The Guardian. When he's not chasing headlines, you'll find him savoring hot pot and shabu shabu in a Taipei local haunt. Timmy holds an MS degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Send tips to [email protected] or get in touch on X/Telegram @timmyhmshen.

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