El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele has revealed some details of his country’s gold reserves in a conversation on Twitter with gold bug Peter Schiff.
Schiff commented on El Salvador buying the dip Saturday morning after Bukele announced that his country bought 100 more BTC as the price of bitcoin fell from above $52K Friday night to below $44K. “There’s a lot more dips coming. How much taxpayer money do you intend to waste?” Schiff asked Bukele.
The Salvadoran president replied, “None.” He emphasized, “We’re already in the green from our last purchase, in less than 24 hours.” Bukele continued:
You know boomer, we have 44,106 oz of gold in our reserves. Worth $79 million, down 0.37% from a year ago. If we had sold it a year ago and bought bitcoin, it would now be valued at $204 million.
In September, Microstrategy CEO Michael Saylor made a similar comment. He revealed: “If I had chosen gold instead of bitcoin last year, it would have been a multi-billion dollar mistake.” His company bought 7,002 more BTC at the end of November, growing its bitcoin holdings to 121,044 coins.
El Salvador made bitcoin legal tender alongside the U.S. dollar in September. Last week, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned of using BTC as legal tender. The governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, also voiced concerns about El Salvador making bitcoin a national currency.
