Concerns have been raised concerning President Bukele’s declaration last week that 5,690 Bitcoins belonged to the nation when he moved them all to a cold wallet, according to reports from the local press in El Salvador. Journalist Moises Alvarado discovered that while 20% of the money in this wallet originated from Chivo Wallet, the national wallet, the remaining 80% came from Bitfinex, an international exchange.
Concerns Regarding BTC Ownership of the Piggy Bank Wallet Are Raised by a Salvadoran Press Report
Questions have been raised over the genuine owner of the Bitcoin that President Nayib Bukele moved to a cold wallet last week, following a piece written by Moises Alvarado and published by the local press in El Salvador. Eighty percent of the five thousand Bitcoins that were moved to El Salvador’s “piggy bank” wallet originated from addresses connected to the global cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex, according to Alvarado.
Alvarado notes that considering the close ties the government has with this cryptocurrency exchange, “multiple indications make it unlikely that these crypto assets belong to the Salvadoran state.” The 4,569 BTC in El Salvador’s cold wallet were deposited in 5 transactions on March 13 and 14, according to an investigation.
The Chivo Wallet ecosystem’s hot wallet was used to move the final 1,121 Bitcoins to the address. A portion of the bitcoin that was transferred “may have belonged to citizens and one of the possibilities is that, with this movement, Chivo Wallet has been defunded,” Alvarado warns of the potential consequences of this transaction.
According to the research, the only verified bitcoin purchases were in 2021 and 2022 when using Bitso, an exchange with a concentration on Latin America. Alvarado emphasizes that it is impossible to confirm whether Bitfinex was the company hired to store the bitcoin that El Salvador employed as an investment vehicle during these years.
Economist Rafael Lemus of El Salvador said:
Since most of the 5,000 bitcoin come from Bitfinex, it is impossible to be positive that they are owned by the Salvadoran State. We have no way of verifying, therefore even while we can assume that individuals who left Chivo Wallet are from the State, we cannot be certain.
Bukele recently increased the amount of bitcoin he owns, declaring that El Salvador will continue to purchase one bitcoin every day until “it becomes unaffordable with fiat currencies.”
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