Yona Gushiken
Shortly after President Nayib Bukele’s groundbreaking announcement that El Salvador would move its inaugural “Bitcoin piggy bank” to a cold wallet and into a securely physical vault, the BTC community responded with vigor. Contributions including sats, Ordinals, and BRC-20 tokens, among others, started flowing in.
“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,” Bukele’s tweet read.
The screenshot shared by President Bukele revealed that the wallet contained 5,689 Bitcoin—valued at $406 million at the time of capture. This valuation indicates that the price of Bitcoin was around $71,463 when the funds were transferred. It also aligns with the timing of the wallet’s first transaction, which occurred on Tuesday, underlining that El Salvador made a strategic move in response to prevailing market conditions.
Interestingly, just 90 minutes after Bukele shared the country’s wallet address, it witnessed an influx of random donations, totaling an impressive 673,418 sats across 25 transactions as noted by one X user.
Ordiscan, a scanner that allows users to explore ordinals and inscriptions on Bitcoin, revealed that El Salvador’s piggy bank has received a minimum of 67 Ordinals donations, featuring a diverse mix that includes BRC-20 tokens, text inscriptions, images, and many more. The wallet address has been the recipient of 56 transactions thus far, with the bulk of these transactions comprising small value transfers.
The majority of the BTC now residing in El Salvador’s Bitcoin piggy bank, which is about 4,568 BTC, originates from the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex, blockchain data showed. A significant portion, about 4,007 BTC, arrived just last night from a Bitfinex exchange address.
Prior to recent updates, El Salvador’s Bitcoin holdings were estimated at 2,848 BTC, valued at $173 million. Since declaring Bitcoin a legal tender in 2021, Bukele has been vocal about the cryptocurrency’s market dynamics. His administration has not only embarked on Bitcoin mining using geothermal energy derived from a volcano but also introduced innovative financial instruments such as Bitcoin “volcano bonds,” further integrating cryptocurrency into the nation’s economic framework.
A few days ago, Bukele shared that El Salvador has eliminated income tax on money coming into the country from abroad. “Congress has reformed our income tax law for international investments and money transfers, dropping the rate from 30% to 0%,” he said in a tweet.
