Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele explained to famous gold bug and cryptocurrency skeptic Peter Schiff yesterday (December 4) why it didn’t make any sense to criticize his country for continuing to take advantage of dips in the Bitcoin price.
Peter Schiff is the CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, a full-service, registered broker/dealer specializing in foreign markets and securities, and founder and Chairman of SchiffGold, a full-service, discount precious metals dealer.
As you may remember, the bill to make Bitcoin legal tender in El Salvador got passed by the Legislative Assembly on June 9 and the Bitcoin Law became effective on September 7.
On Saturday (December 4), President Bukele, who is clearly betting the future of his country on Bitcoin, took to Twitter to announce that his country had bought 150 more bitcoin (at an average price of $48,670) shortly after the Bitcoin price dipped below $50,000. He also admitted that they had failed to buy $BTC at its intraday low (which was $42,431 on Bitstamp). This brought the number of bitcoins El Salvador has purchased so far to 1,270, which is worth around $62 million at the time of writing.
Naturally, Schiff had to voice his opinion on what he consider reckless behavior by the Salvadoran president.
At this point, it is worth noting that previous to this latest purchase, the last time El Salvador bought the Bitcoin dip was on October 27/28.
Anyway, President Bukele decided to respond to Schiff’s attack by pointing out that in the past one year period the value of his nation’s gold reserves — which is currently around $79 million — has gone down by 0.37%, but if they had sold their gold back then and bought Bitcoin with the proceeds of the sale, the value of those bitcoins would now be around $204 million.
Of course, there are some people, such as Natalie Brunell, the host of the Coin Stories podcast, who (possibly jokingly) say that Schiff secretly loves Bitcoin (despite his non-stop attacks on Bitcoin).
According to a report by Reuters, on November 20, President Bukele announced at the end of the Bitcoin Week conference in El Salvador that his nation wants to build the world’s first “Bitcoin City” (in the beginning, this will be funded by Bitcoin-backed bonds) in the eastern region of La Unión , and that this city would be powered by a nearby volcano (which is called Conchagua) and residents there would not have any taxes other than value added tax (VAT) to worry about.
He reportedly said:
“Invest here and make all the money you want… This is a fully ecological city that works and is energized by a volcano.“
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IMAGE CREDIT
Photo by “WorldSpectrum” via Pixabay
