John Dennehy on Nostr: Good morning from El Salvador We are now in DAY 27 since the government rescinded ...
Good morning from El Salvador
We are now in DAY 27 since the government rescinded Bitcoin as legal tender, at the request of the IMF (effective 30 April)
In 2022 President Bukele announced El Salvador would buy a Bitcoin a day, every day
In 2023 the govt created a page where the public could verify those daily purchases, and every single day, like clockwork, one was added
On January 25, 2025 nothing was added to the total for the first time ever
Why is that interesting?
On December 18, 2024 the IMF announced a draft loan agreement with El Salvador which included various pre-conditions that the govt would have to conform to BEFORE the agreement could become official and the the first payments would begin, including many changes to how the nation would treat Bitcoin (including quietly repealing it as legal tender on Jan 29, 2025)
So the automatic buying stopped on January 25th. More Bitcoin has been added to that balance since, though its been sporadic and inconsistent. This week 7 days passed without any new bitcoin added to El Salvador's public wallet and just as people were starting to notice and ask questions, El Salvador added 7 bitcoin
Why is this even more interesting?
The primary question people began asking was: did the IMF loan affect the one Bitcoin per day auto-buy program?
If there was a policy change or technical issue that could have been addressed easily. But maybe the president didn't even know people were asking these questions, you may say.
Nope. He heard those doubts and rumors, as evidenced by his tweet yesterday. That is certain. So then, he made a choice to NOT answer them directly
Why? Why would he turn this into a loyalty test rather than actually answer the question?
Another bit of important context is that the Govt holds Bitcoin outside of this public wallet. I have personally paid the govt bitcoin numerous times for things like my entry fee at the airport or getting my residency. In addition the govt has (had?) a program called 'Freedom Passports' which they sold for Bitcoin, for the equivalent of 1 million USD, and I know various people who made that purchase. Plus they mine Bitcoin in small quantities. Point is the govt has an unknown amount of Bitcoin that exists outside of that one public address
I see two broad possibilities
1. El Salvador has stopped buying Bitcoin, but they don't want to admit that. If they wanted to manipulate opinion about this the most obvious thing would be to slowly transfer Bitcoin from thier private stock to the public wallet to make it seem like they were still buying--this would explain why the President won't directly address these doubts. However, if that was the case why wouldn't they just drip one per day? That'd be easy and would draw the least attention
2. The president WANTS attention on that wallet and doubts to surface and fester because the IMF deal will not in fact stop the one-per-day program. In this scenario doubts are very publicly proven to be unfounded and those that questioned him proven to be publicly wrong. This would explain why the purchases are sporadic (which will predictably draw attention) and more importantly why he framed yesterdays buy as a loyalty test of faith
Either way, President Bukele doesn't want you to look too closely at the IMF deal--that's about the only thing that is clear. We should be asking why not?
We are now in DAY 27 since the government rescinded Bitcoin as legal tender, at the request of the IMF (effective 30 April)
In 2022 President Bukele announced El Salvador would buy a Bitcoin a day, every day
In 2023 the govt created a page where the public could verify those daily purchases, and every single day, like clockwork, one was added
On January 25, 2025 nothing was added to the total for the first time ever
Why is that interesting?
On December 18, 2024 the IMF announced a draft loan agreement with El Salvador which included various pre-conditions that the govt would have to conform to BEFORE the agreement could become official and the the first payments would begin, including many changes to how the nation would treat Bitcoin (including quietly repealing it as legal tender on Jan 29, 2025)
So the automatic buying stopped on January 25th. More Bitcoin has been added to that balance since, though its been sporadic and inconsistent. This week 7 days passed without any new bitcoin added to El Salvador's public wallet and just as people were starting to notice and ask questions, El Salvador added 7 bitcoin
Why is this even more interesting?
The primary question people began asking was: did the IMF loan affect the one Bitcoin per day auto-buy program?
If there was a policy change or technical issue that could have been addressed easily. But maybe the president didn't even know people were asking these questions, you may say.
Nope. He heard those doubts and rumors, as evidenced by his tweet yesterday. That is certain. So then, he made a choice to NOT answer them directly
Why? Why would he turn this into a loyalty test rather than actually answer the question?
Another bit of important context is that the Govt holds Bitcoin outside of this public wallet. I have personally paid the govt bitcoin numerous times for things like my entry fee at the airport or getting my residency. In addition the govt has (had?) a program called 'Freedom Passports' which they sold for Bitcoin, for the equivalent of 1 million USD, and I know various people who made that purchase. Plus they mine Bitcoin in small quantities. Point is the govt has an unknown amount of Bitcoin that exists outside of that one public address
I see two broad possibilities
1. El Salvador has stopped buying Bitcoin, but they don't want to admit that. If they wanted to manipulate opinion about this the most obvious thing would be to slowly transfer Bitcoin from thier private stock to the public wallet to make it seem like they were still buying--this would explain why the President won't directly address these doubts. However, if that was the case why wouldn't they just drip one per day? That'd be easy and would draw the least attention
2. The president WANTS attention on that wallet and doubts to surface and fester because the IMF deal will not in fact stop the one-per-day program. In this scenario doubts are very publicly proven to be unfounded and those that questioned him proven to be publicly wrong. This would explain why the purchases are sporadic (which will predictably draw attention) and more importantly why he framed yesterdays buy as a loyalty test of faith
Either way, President Bukele doesn't want you to look too closely at the IMF deal--that's about the only thing that is clear. We should be asking why not?