President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele shared a photo of the country’s Bitcoin cryptocurrency portfolio on Thursday, showing that the country has over $573 million worth of bitcoin and a 113.84 percent profit as a result of the cryptocurrency’s recent surge in value.
Bitcoin is experiencing a record-breaking surge in value in the days following the U.S. presidential election, where President-elect Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris. On Thursday, Bitcoin rose above $98,000 for the first time in its history and remains hovering around that value at press time.
In addition to the fight against El Salvador’s violent criminal gangs, the adoption of the bitcoin cryptocurrency is a core policy of the Bukele government. In 2021, El Salvador officially adopted bitcoin as legal tender, becoming the first country to do so. Bitcoin joined the United States dollar as one of the country’s two official currencies. El Salvador began purchasing bitcoin when the value of the cryptocurrency hovered around $52,600.
Using his Instagram account’s story feature, Bukele published a picture of the country’s bitcoin portfolio on Thursday. The information in the photo indicated that the country made a 113.84-percent profit from its bitcoin reserves from the ongoing surge, with an unrealized profit of $305 million and a current balance of $573.25 million. Posts made on Instagram’s story feature are automatically set to expire after 24 hours.
According to the information in the image, El Salvador invested $268 million worth of Bitcoin.
Instagram Screencap/@NayibBukele
Bukele accompanied the screenshot of the portfolio information with another story post of the “Chill Guy” meme, edited to resemble him.
Instagram Screencap/@NayibBukele
He also shared the original image on his Twitter account.
On Thursday, several cryptocurrency news outlets reported that a cryptocurrency bearing the “Chill Guy” meme imagery and name was “pumped” in value after Bukele shared the meme on Twitter, leading to a 65-percent surge in the value of the “memecoin” in 90 minutes.
Since then, Phillip Banks, the artist who drew the original “Chill Guy” dog meme image in 2023, announced that he would take legal action against individuals or groups using the meme for cryptocurrency or other profit-related purposes.
At press time, a public tracer known as the “Nayib Bukele Portfolio Tracker” estimated the country’s total Bitcoin holdings at roughly $556 million.
In March, Bukele announced that some $400 million worth of El Salvador’s Bitcoin holdings had been stored in a “cold wallet” and safely secured in a physical vault inside the country. A “cold wallet” is a device completely disconnected from the internet, which prevents any possible hacking attack or intrusions that could lead to a potential loss of assets. As all bitcoins exist within their online blockchain, the “cold wallet” does not store the cryptocurrency itself — but rather, it contains the means to access the account’s assets.
Bukele’s bitcoin policies have been widely criticized by international organizations over the past year, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which urged the Salvadoran president to revoke Bitcoin’s legal tender status in 2022 as it could “destabilize the nation’s economy.”
Last week, Bukele bragged, declaring “I told you so” when El Salvador’s unrealized bitcoin profit passed the $100 million threshold.
Throughout his presidential campaign, President-elect Trump vowed that this upcoming administration would adopt policies in favor of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
