President Bukele Shares Bitcoin Transfer to Cold Storage Wallet

El Salvador this week transferred $400 million worth of bitcoin (BTC) into a cold storage wallet, as announced by President Nayib Bukele. The move involved more than 5,000 BTC.

The transfer to the cold wallet happened throughout the last week, with the majority of the bitcoin arriving on Thursday. Analysis from Arkham Intelligence indicates that much of the transferred bitcoin originated from Bitfinex.

President Bukele shared details of the transaction on X (formerly Twitter), describing the cold storage facility as “our first #Bitcoin piggy bank.” He further mentioned that the wallet is securely stored “in a physical vault within our national territory.” Accompanying his post was a photo showing a wallet balance of 5,689.68 BTC, valued at $406 million based on the prices at the time.

Although there have been rumors of other nations purchasing Bitcoin, El Salvador is currently a leading national holder of the cryptocurrency. The action not only expands the country’s investment in digital assets but also represents a more transparent approach to disclosing its bitcoin strategy. Before this announcement, President Bukele often used social media to update on the nation’s bitcoin purchases without linking to any specific wallet address.

El Salvador’s engagement with bitcoin started in earnest on September 7 in 2021, making history as the first country to integrate the cryptocurrency into its treasury assets. At the time of the initial purchase, bitcoin was trading at around $52,000 per coin. However, after the price had traded above $72,000, it dipped to $67,705 at the time of writing, according to CoinMarketCap data.