El Salvador President Nayib Bukele Lashes Out at ‘Mainstream Media’ for Spreading Lies About the Country’s Bitcoin Investments

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Ruholamin Haqshanas

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Ruholamin Haqshanas

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Ruholamin Haqshanas is a contributing crypto writer for CryptoNews. He is a crypto and finance journalist with over four years of experience. Ruholamin has been featured in several high-profile crypto...

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October 22, 2023

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El Salvador President Nayib Bukele has slammed “the mainstream media” over their attacks on the country’s move to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender. 

The statement came in a response to a recent tweet by Bloomberg that claimed Bukele’s move to promote Bitcoin as a “solution to the country’s economic problems” has failed miserably.

“El Salvador’s bombastic president promoted Bitcoin as a solution to the country’s economic problems. One year in, it’s clear his “revolution” is failing,” Bloomberg’s official Twitter account said, while linking to an article published on November 4.

“This article is full of lies, which is standard for Bloomberg,” Bukele responded. “But what is most surprising is how the mainstream media suddenly cares so much about El Salvador. Corrupt politicians plundered 37 billion dollars from our state coffers and they never wrote one single article.”

In fact, some in the crypto community have pointed out that Bloomberg has been reposting the same tweet criticizing El Salvador and Nayib Bukele over the past couple of weeks. 

“It’s fine to write a negative opinion piece, but this repetition is pure propaganda,” said Neil Jacobs, Host of the Bitcoin News Show. “I’m not buying that the people at Bloomberg, one of the largest publications in the world, have some bad social media dept. that accidentally posts this on repeat using the app SocialFlow.”

Correction. They’ve posted this 11 times in one month. pic.twitter.com/TrHUPAEBd1

— Neil Jacobs (@NeilJacobs) December 3, 2022

Alex Gladstein, a crypto enthusiast and an essay writer at Bitcoin Magazine, claimed that other mainstream media do the same thing with articles that criticize Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. “The NYT does this with most of its Bitcoin climate stories,” he said. 

How is El Salvador’s Bitcoin Investment Paying Off?

El Salvador became the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender back in June 2021. Consequently, the country started directly investing millions in Bitcoin by acquiring and holding the flagship cryptocurrency. 

However, since the country purchased BTC when the coin was near all-time highs, its holdings have lost more than half of their value over the past couple of months. According to public records, El Salvador currently holds 2,381 BTC purchased at an average buying price of $43,357. 

With Bitcoin currently trading around the $17,000 mark, El Salvador’s BTC holdings are worth around $40 million. Since the country has spent nearly $103.23 million on its BTC purchase, El Salvador is down by more than $63 million on its BTC investment.