President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador announced yesterday that the country is storing over 5,689 bitcoins in a cold wallet in a vault, revealing in the process that 4,560 of these bitcoins were received from Bitfinex.
Bukele shared the wallet address on X (formerly Twitter), claiming it was a “big chunk” of El Salvador’s bitcoin and suggesting that the country has more bitcoin stored elsewhere. The vault is dubbed ‘the piggy bank’ and Bukele claimed, “It’s not much, but it’s honest work 😂.”
We’ve decided to transfer a big chunk of our #Bitcoin to a cold wallet, and store that cold wallet in a physical vault within our national territory.
You can call it our first #Bitcoin piggy bank 🇸🇻
It’s not much, but it’s honest work 😂 pic.twitter.com/dqzedykxT1
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) March 14, 2024
Read more: Did Bukele lie about El Salvador’s bitcoin profits?
Bukele claimed he transferred 5,000 bitcoin to the account, which now holds 5,689 bitcoin altogether. The figure exceeds the 2,864 bitcoin recorded by nayibtracker.com this morning, a website unaffiliated with Bukele that traces his bitcoin.
He has previously referred to Nayibtracker himself to document his profits. In one instance, the tracker had to admit it was inaccurate in its reporting.
Nayibtracker’s recording of Bukele’s bitcoin this morning has since been updated with the newly announced figure.
However, Mario Gomez, a vocal critic of both Bukele and his bitcoin plans, has claimed that Bukele’s bitcoin purchase announcements do not correlate with transfers made to the El Salvador crypto wallet.
Bitfinex sent 4,560 bitcoin to the Bukele wallet
Gomez alleges Bitifinex has been providing the country with bitcoin despite El Salvador claiming Bitso as its bitcoin custodian. In 2021, it was reported that Bitso worked with Silvergate Bank to facilitate US dollar transactions to a Chivo wallet holding El Salvador’s bitcoin.
Indeed, Protos can verify using blockchain analytics tool Breadcrumbs that since March 13, roughly 4,560 bitcoins, worth just under $310 million, have been transferred from Bitfinex to the wallet shared by Nayib Bukele.
Translated using DeepL, Gomez claimed, “Literally, what [El Salvador] has done is what Tether does with their attestations: they move borrowed money into an account, pull the report and say ‘Look, you can see that there is money.’ Only with bitcoin instead of dollars.”
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He also claims that the crypto in El Salavdor’s Chivo wallet was never about ‘hodling.’ Instead, he claims the wallet has been circulating funds.
In June 2021, Nayib Bukele made bitcoin the legal tender of El Salvador. In September of that same year, Bukele unofficially arrested Gomez.
The activist previously linked a Chivo wallet proposed by El Salvador to a widespread Twitter hack involving a bitcoin giveaway scam and dozens of breached celebrity accounts. Gomez was detained without a warrant, accused of financial fraud, and returned to his home shortly after.
