El Salvador president predicts ‘gigantic price increase’ for Bitcoin

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has made yet different bullish Bitcoin prediction soon aft the International Monetary Fund urged his authorities to region Bitcoin’s presumption arsenic ineligible tender.

Bukele took to Twitter connected Monday to foretell that Bitcoin  (BTC) volition yet spot a “gigantic terms increase” owed to its limited proviso of lone 21 cardinal integer coins.

The president cited Bitcoin's scarcity case, emphasizing determination are “more than 50 cardinal millionaires” successful the world, and determination is not capable Bitcoin if each 1 of them wanted to ain astatine slightest 1 BTC.

“No capable for adjacent fractional of them. A gigantic terms summation is conscionable a substance of time,” Bukele wrote.

— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) January 31, 2022

Bukele’s comments came soon aft the International Monetary Fund (IMF) urged El Salvador to end its designation of Bitcoin arsenic ineligible tender owed to risks related to fiscal stableness and user protection. The IMF’s study followed a crisp Bitcoin terms decline, with BTC losing astir $10,000 of its worth successful a play from Jan. 20 to Jan. 25, according to information from CoinGecko.

Bitcoin 30-day terms chart. Source: CoinGecko

The latest Bitcoin clang caused large dollar-nominated losses to El Salvador’s Bitcoin reserves. As antecedently reported by Cointelegraph, the Salvadoran authorities made its archetypal 200 BTC purchase connected Sept. 6, erstwhile BTC traded astir $52,000. The authorities past bought 420 BTC connected Oct. 27 erstwhile Bitcoin’s marketplace terms was supra $58,000. El Salvador besides aboriginal bought immoderate Bitcoin astatine astir $54,000 successful November and more BTC astatine $49,000 successful mid-December.

At the clip of writing, BTC is trading astatine $37,159, down astir 45% from its historical highs of supra $68,000 recorded connected Nov. 9.