El Salvador’s bitcoin experiment is not paying off
The value of the country’s cryptocurrency has fallen by two-thirds
Will the fall in the price of bitcoin following the collapse of FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange, cause El Salvador’s bitcoin-backing president, Nayib Bukele, to reconsider his gamble with the country’s finances? So far Mr Bukele, who made bitcoin legal tender in September 2021, appears defiant. On November 17th he tweeted that his government will buy one bitcoin a day, after not having bought any in almost six months (see chart). He has also brushed off any criticism of his decision to buy it using public money. “Stop drinking the elites’ Kool-Aid and take a look at the facts,” he wrote two months ago.
This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline "Deep down in the crypto-dip"
From the November 19th 2022 edition
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