Key Points
- El Salvador transfers a large portion of its Bitcoin reserve to a physically cold wallet.
- The new wallet has been flooded with satoshis, “rare sats”, cats, and ordinals from crypto traders.
El Salvador has made a significant move in its cryptocurrency strategy by transferring a large portion of its Bitcoin reserve to a cold wallet. This move was announced on social media by the country’s President, Nayib Bukele.
El Salvador’s Bitcoin Strategy
The cold wallet, which is stored in a physical vault within the country, has been inundated with satoshis, “rare sats”, cats, and ordinals by crypto traders. According to data from Bitcoin explorer Mempool, the wallet now holds a balance of 5,689.7 BTC or $388 million in dollar terms. Ordscan also revealed that the wallet contains at least 67 Ordinals, including text inscriptions, images, a 3D “runestone”, BRC-20 tokens, and “Cypherpunk Manifesto”.
The wallet also reportedly holds satoshi donations worth about $700, many of which are labeled as “pizza” and “vintage”. “Vintage sats” refers to satoshis that were mined within the first 1000 Bitcoin blocks, while “Pizza sats” originate from the 10,000 BTC used by early Bitcoin contributor Laszlo Hanyecz to pay for two Papa John’s pepperoni pizzas in 2010.
El Salvador’s Bitcoin Journey
So far, 56 transactions have been made to El Salvador’s new wallet address, most of which are small value transfers. The exact purpose of these transfers to the cold wallet remains unknown, but the crypto community seems pleased with the transparency shown by Nayib Bukele regarding the country’s Bitcoin activities.
El Salvador’s adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender in September 2021 was met with internal riots and backlash from global agencies like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), both of which warned of potential economic downturn if the BTC legal tender status was not reversed. Despite these criticisms, El Salvador has remained steadfast in its Bitcoin strategy, which has largely been successful so far.
According to various on-chain data from explorers, the initial transfer of over 5,698 BTC reportedly came from different sources. As of March 13, a total of 1,129 BTC was reported to have come from 3/5 multisig signatories or authorization. On March 14, approximately 4,000 BTC was transferred, marking the highest amount sent to the cold storage. With the cold wallet located within the National Territory, the El Salvador President emphasized the importance of maintaining honest work with both his citizens and Bitcoin enthusiasts around the world. The next steps for El Salvador following this cold storage path remain unclear, but the FOMO in sending Ordinals donations might not fade off fast.
