El Salvador, which came to the fore with the purchase of Bitcoin and made the largest crypto money with its market value, paid 800 million dollars of bond debt. Meanwhile, President Nayib Bukele reacted to organizations that did not care about this. Here are the details…
$800 million Bitcoin payment from El Salvador
In a Twitter thread on January 23, El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele criticized “international traditional news organizations” for failing to report on his country’s $800 million bond debt. Bukele said outlets have extensively predicted that the South American country will not be able to pay its debts due to the “Bitcoin bet”. He noted that some of these firms have written that his country may have to come to an agreement with the International Monetary Fund to make its bond payments due to Bitcoin losses. Bukele added:
[They] were creating the narrative that El Salvador was broke and was going to default. I called out to them at the time, but of course, who will believe us if not the international news outlet and their “economic genius”?
But after the country paid the full $800m in interest, Bukele said, “almost nobody tells the story.” He stated that the major media organizations are lying:
[Major media outlets] lie and lie and lie and go into silence mode when their lies are exposed.
El Salvador had a huge backlash.
El Salvador’s bond debt repayment comes just after approval for the sale of $1 billion worth of BTC-backed bonds. The country plans to use the funds to buy more BTC and build a “Bitcoin City”. Earlier, El Salvador was condemned by international financial institutions for its decision to adopt cryptocurrency as legal tender in September 2021. Some experts predicted that the country would struggle to repay its debts due to BTC’s volatility.
In September 2021, El Salvador declared Bitcoin a legal currency, making it an official currency in its geographic region. This move caused a split in the global socio-political environment. Bitcoin advocates saw the move as a milestone towards mainstream adoption. However, traditional monetary policy makers called it a bad decision and predicted it would backfire.
Changpeng Zhao responded to Bukele’s tweet
El Salvador was not satisfied with just the explanation, cryptocoin.com As we have also reported, he has also invested heavily in Bitcoin. Shortly after, the price of Bitcoin plummeted and dragged the rest of the crypto market with it. In the midst of the turmoil, Bukele remained determined and never backed down from his decision. Even threats from international monetary policymakers could not slow it down. Also, one of the first to show support for Bukele’s post was Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ). CZ shared the emoji below.
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— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) January 24, 2023
