Bitcoin Flash Crash: Salvadoran President takes advantage of the fall to refuel

By: Bharggavi Ssayee

September 12, 2021 9:12 AM

September 7, 2021 was to be a day of celebration for the cryptosphere: the first “Bitcoin Salvador Day”, with the king of cryptos becoming, by law, legal tender in a country. But the market ended the party abruptly, when the BTC price crashed -10%. The Salvadoran president, however, does not seem to be overly concerned about this. On the contrary, he saw it as an opportunity.

An accumulation of BTC that does not intend to end

Early on Tuesday, September 7, President Nayib Bukele officially announced that El Salvador had acquired the country's first 200 bitcoins for its treasury. Besides the entry into force of Bitcoin as legal tender, this day was therefore also the first that a nation purchased BTC on its own behalf and that of its people.

The rest of that day, however, did not turn out as one might have hoped, given its symbolic and historical importance to the growing adoption of Bitcoin.

Between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. KST, the price of BTC experienced a violent flash crash, which took the king of cryptos from $ 50,000 to a very brief low of $ 42,000, before stabilizing around the 46,000/47,000 dollars.

As we will see, this in no way slowed down the Salvadoran government's progress in integrating Bitcoin into its economy.

A 550 BTC war chest from day one

As “weak hands” prematurely let go of their cryptocurrencies and leveraged speculators were brutally liquidated their positions with billions of dollars, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele explained that state services continued to sell off their positions. 'buy bitcoins during the flash crash, taking advantage of these slashed prices, in an impressive “buy the dip” example.

At the very moment of the depths of this lightning drop, El Salvador acquired 150 BTC more for its treasury, as its leader specifies in a tweet.

Publication by Nayib Bukele - Source: Twitter

In his next message, Nayib Bukele even took the liberty of tempering the International Monetary Fund (IMF) a bit in passing. This supranational organization had indeed violently threatened El Salvador and its president for this initiative making Bitcoin legal tender.

Nayib Bukele ironically thanked the IMF for having "saved a million [dollars] in printed paper" thanks to these lightning "balances", perhaps implying that this very sudden attack on Bitcoin prices did not was not entirely coincidental.

At the end of this somewhat crazy day, which will forever mark the crypto community, El Salvador owned as a state 550 BTC on behalf of its People, or more than $ 25 million following the still feverish price of BTC.

Despite what is hoped to be a small setback in Bitcoin prices, the Salvadoran example could snowball and inspire other emerging countries, especially South America. Among these, Honduras recently took a decisive first step towards the adoption of Bitcoin.