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El Salvador's crypto experiment ends in failure

(www.economist.com)
151 points jcartw | 6 comments | 09 Mar 25 21:58 UTC | HN request time: 0.223s | source | bottom
1. Jimmc414 ◴[10 Mar 25 00:40 UTC] No.43315589[source]▶
El Salvador invested approximately $269.74 million to acquire 5,900 bitcoins ($595 million) and secure $1.4 billion in IMF loans. I hope they can recover from this failure.
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2. ramchip ◴[10 Mar 25 00:59 UTC] No.43315732[source]▶
Did you read the article?

> Moreover, the policy cost $375m in all—from the Chivo rollout, subsidised transaction fees, bitcoin ATMs and more—according to Moody’s, a rating agency. That far exceeds the profits on bitcoin holdings, which could still evaporate. By delaying an IMF deal, the crypto experiment kept El Salvador's risk premium high.

replies(1): >>43315797 #
3. toomim ◴[10 Mar 25 01:08 UTC] No.43315797[source]▶
I don't believe el salvador spent $375m on those things. I could believe that Chivo spent their VC money on that.
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4. toomim ◴[10 Mar 25 01:14 UTC] No.43315847[source]▶
El Salvador makes $330m from a Bitcoin investment and the Financial Times calls it a "failure."
5. xiphias2 ◴[10 Mar 25 01:17 UTC] No.43315872[source]▶
The article doesn't get into the interesting part: Salvadorian government continued accumulating BTC. So far IMF didn't say anything specific, so the June review will be interesting to see if IMF continues with the loan or cancels the next trenches.
6. ◴[10 Mar 25 04:32 UTC] No.43317039{3}[source]▶