El Salvador President Nayib Bukele Adds 150 New Bitcoins, Thanks IMF For Being Critical of His Crypto Ambitions

According to TradingView data, Bitcoin BTC/USD plunged by nearly 19% on Tuesday from the day's high of almost $53,000 to a low of under $43,000. 

This marks the first day Bitcoin became legal tender in El Salvador, the first country to adopt crypto as a national currency.

Even though Bitcoin took the slope, El Salvador bought into the dip to the tune of 150 Bitcoin. President Nayib Bukele announced in his tweet, "Buying the dip…150 new coins added."

He also took Twitter to thank the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which has been critical of his crypto ambitions, for the dip. 

Bukele said, "It appears the discount is ending …Thanks for the dip IMF. We saved a million on the printed paper. El Salvador now holds 550 Bitcoin."

Last month the IMF criticized El Salvador's decision to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender. The IMF tweeted that the risk of "privately issued crypto-assets like Bitcoin" makes it so that "making them equivalent to a national currency is an inadvisable shortcut."

Peter Schiff, chief economist and global strategist at Europac.com, reacted to Bukele's post on the dip. He tweeted, "Be careful what you wish for. The dip may end up being a much larger plunge than you expect!"

Bukele also retweeted Peter McCormack: "So many people want Bukele to fail. IMF, World Bank, US Gov, EU, Opposition parties. Yet if he succeeds with his ambitious Bitcoin project, he will raise the entire population of El Salvador. Imagine wanting these people to suffer more…" 

Bukele may be ambitious with his Bitcoin project, but the country has started seeing outages. The WSJ reports service outages on the government's new Chivo digital wallet. Users also reported issues signing up or unexplained fluctuations in their displayed account balance.

The good news is that McDonald's Corp MCD is now reportedly accepting bitcoin payments in the country.

Photo: 3D Animation Production Company from Pixabay