El Salvador is under pressure as a result of Bitcoin‘s price drop over the last couple of days.
For the past few months, El Salvador‘s dollar-denominated bonds have been on a free slide. Nayib Bukele, the country’s president, seeks to improve the country’s economic realities by issuing Bitcoin-denominated bonds.
President Bukele‘s prolonged association with Bitcoin, according to Steve Hanke, a professor of applied economics at John Hopkins University, could prove very costly for the country’s economy and the state of its dollar-denominated bonds. He chastised Bukele for his frequent Bitcoin purchases, adding that if he was so interested in Bitcoin, he should “gamble” with his own money rather than taxpayers’ money.
After Bukele announced plans to sell $1 billion in Bitcoin-denominated bonds in December, Steve Hanke expressed concern about the quality of the country’s bonds. The bond offering will raise half of the intended amount, which will be used to fund the development of a Bitcoin City, while the other half will be used to purchase more Bitcoin for the country’s reserve.
El Salvador recently declared that it was sending about 20 legislation to its government that would give Bitcoin bonds legal backing, prompting the professor’s latest warning.
Hanke, who has counselled developing market countries on currency challenges, has never shied away from criticizing El Salvador’s Bitcoin adoption. He’s used strong words like “crazy” and “irresponsible” to criticize the Bitcoin adoption movement. His harsh accusations have elicited a retort from Bukele, who claims that the country’s Bitcoin investment is performing well.
El Salvador’s bond issue and how Bitcoin can help
Since Bukele announced his ambitions to issue Bitcoin bonds, El Salvador’s dollar-denominated bonds have been struggling. El Salvador’s bonds due to mature in 2023 slipped over their all-time high in November 2021.
According to data from Boerse Frankfurt, this resulted in the yield soaring beyond 17% from roughly 6.3% at the time. The country’s debt is still in a troubled area, indicating that the government is on the verge of defaulting or has already done so in terms of its security status.
Analysts have pointed out, however, that the launch of Bitcoin bonds was not the sole driver in the bond rate’s decline. Concerns about COVID-19 and the ambitions of the US Federal Reserve Bank are also affecting the bonds of other emerging nations, according to Marc Ostwald, the chief economist at London-based ADM Investors Services International.
“There has been a sharp widening of spreads between the emerging market bond yields and Treasury yields in the past two weeks and an uptick in yields on investment-grade and high-yielding bonds,” Ostwald told CoinDesk last month.
El Salvador’s Bitcoin bonds, on the other hand, maybe crucial in pulling the country out of its rut. This is due to the fact that Bitcoin has been the highest performing asset over the last decade, making it an appealing proposition for investors.
The Bitcoin bond, which Nayib Bukele previously predicted would be oversubscribed when it goes on sale, will allow investors to wager on Bitcoin’s prospective price rise. The President is still enthusiastic about Bitcoin, recently predicting that it will hit $100,000 in the near future.