El Salvador Buys One Bitcoin per Day, Launches New Transparency Website

Key Takeaways

• El Salvador launches a new website to enhance transparency around Bitcoin treasury holdings.
• Website confirms El Salvador’s commitment to buying one Bitcoin daily, aligning with President Bukele’s vision.
• El Salvador has mined nearly 500 BTC using geothermal energy from a volcano.

The Bitcoin Office of El Salvador (ONBTC) has introduced a website that people to verify the country’s treasury holdings.

This platform is a tailored version of block explorer Mempool Space. Perhaps more importantly, however, it confirms El Salvador consistently purchases one Bitcoin every day.

El Salvador, the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, is trying to make its Bitcoin holdings more transparent.

According to the site, the country’s total Bitcoin holdings are close to 5,750 BTC, which, at the time of writing (May 15 2024), is worth nearly $360 million.

Site Reveals Daily Purchases But Not Full Holdings

The site addresses previous criticisms of secrecy surrounding the administration’s handling of state funds for Bitcoin acquisitions.

It confirms ongoing additions to the national Bitcoin reserves. Meanwhile President Nayib Bukele made a commitment to buy one Bitcoin a day “until Bitcoin becomes unaffordable with fiat currencies”.

However, it remains uncertain whether the address the website monitors includes all of El Salvador’s Bitcoin.

President Nayib Bukele has indicated that “a big chunk” of the nation’s Bitcoin reserves has moved to this address. He has not, however, confirmed whether this represents its entire reserves. It is also possible there is more BTC in other, undisclosed, addresses, not visible to the public.

Since 2021, El Salvador has used a geothermal power plant powered by the Tecapa volcano to mine nearly 500 BTC.

These Bitcoin, valued at about $29 million, have been mined using a relatively small amount of geothermal energy from the volcano.

The state-owned power plant uses the geothermal energy produced by the volcano to generate 102 megawatts (MW) of power. Of this, 1.5 MW are specifically allocated to cryptocurrency mining.