Bitcoin’s plunging value has hurt cryptocurrency investors everywhere. The stakes are particularly high in El Salvador, the indebted Central American country whose president has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayers’ money to buy bitcoin and roll it out as its national currency.
The country’s planned placement of a $1 billion exotic bond that bets on an increase in bitcoin’s value has stalled, according to country officials, and the market value of El’s $100 million Salvador in bitcoin holdings have fallen by about a third, which is compressing the country’s finances. further and increasing the chances that it will default on its sovereign debt by more than $24 billion, economists say.
