President of El Salvador says ‘FTX is the opposite of Bitcoin’

El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele took to Twitter to proclaim the Bitcoin protocol arsenic the other of FTX and likened FTX to a Ponzi strategy successful the aftermath of the exchange’s illness connected Nov. 14.

Bukele, a staunch promoter and believer of Bitcoin, said the flagship crypto was designed to forestall Ponzi schemes, slope runs, and fraud committed by institutions successful the fiscal system.

Examples cited by the President see Enron’s maltreatment of accounting practices to inflate the company’s revenues and conceal indebtedness successful its subsidiaries successful 2021, American fraudster Bernie Madoff’s $64.8 cardinal Ponzi strategy successful 2019, and astir recently, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) secretly transferring customers’ funds to Alameda Research.

The Bitcoin blockchain is an open-source protocol, upon which immoderate transaction tin beryllium verified by the public, arsenic opposed to a Ponzi scheme, wherever concern funds are shrouded successful secrecy.

Bitcoin and Bukele

Fake quality claiming Bukele stored the country’s crypto holdings connected collapsed FTX ran rampant past week but were rapidly dismissed by Binance CEO Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao via a tweet connected Nov. 11.

However, the magnitude Bukele and his authorities spent connected Bitcoin buying sprees utilizing nationalist wealth since helium made the currency ineligible tender successful the state was ne'er disclosed.

On Oct. 31, 2022, The Development slope of El Salvador, BANDESAL, refused the country’s Anti-Corruption Legal Advisory Center’s (ALAC) petition to disclose the government’s Bitcoin acquisition and merchantability records for the 2nd time.

The state presently holds 2,381 Bitcoin, astir $39.8 cardinal astatine the clip of writing, according to information from Bloomberg Economics.

Meanwhile, the authorities is besides ranked by Bloomberg Economics arsenic 1 of the apical emerging marketplace countries that are susceptible to a indebtedness default.

The adoption of Bitcoin successful the state has been dilatory truthful far.

According to a March 2022 survey by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of El Salvador, 86% of businesses ne'er made a merchantability with Bitcoin, portion lone 20% of businesses judge Bitcoin portion lone 14% of respondents person utilized Bitcoin transactions since it became ineligible tender successful El Salvador.

The station President of El Salvador says ‘FTX is the other of Bitcoin’ appeared archetypal connected CryptoSlate.