El Salvador, a country in Central America known for its support of Bitcoin, transferred $400 million worth of bitcoin into a secure cold wallet this week, its President, Nayib Bukele has said.
A cold wallet is a type of cryptocurrency wallet that is not connected to the internet, making it more secure against hacking and cyber attacks and is typically used for long-term storage of large amounts of cryptocurrency.
Bukele announced on Friday in a post on X, "We've decided to transfer a big chunk of our #Bitcoin to a cold wallet, and store that cold wallet in a physical vault within our national territory. You can call it our first #Bitcoin piggy bank. It's not much, but it's honest work."
He described this new arrangement as "the first Bitcoin piggy bank."
Bukele also uploaded a picture of the wallet containing 5,689.68 BTC, valued at $411 million as per Thursday's rates.
El Salvador's Bitcoin treasury now exceeds previous estimates by a significant margin.
As of Thursday, public trackers had indicated the nation's holdings to be less than 3,000 BTC ($205 million), reported CoinDesk.
Earlier this week, Bukele hinted that the country's acquisition of BTC wasn't solely through purchases but also involved obtaining it through the sale of passports, currency conversions for businesses, mining activities, and government services.
The cold string marks the first instance where Bukele has linked his country's holdings to a particular address. Previously, he had only used social media to discuss the size of the treasury, occasionally updating whenever El Salvador made additional purchases.
In September 2021, El Salvador made history by becoming the first country to buy bitcoin as a treasury asset, when the price was approximately $52,000 per coin.
As of Saturday, BTC prices hovered between highs of over $69,000 and lows of around $68,000.
Over the past week, on-chain transfers were made into El Salvador's cold wallet, with the bulk of them arriving on Thursday.
Arkham Intelligence, a blockchain intelligence company that has built a platform that provides information on the real-world entities and individuals behind cryptocurrency, reports that the majority of the bitcoin held in that wallet originated from Bitfinex.
Bitfinex is the longest-running and most liquid major cryptocurrency exchange and was founded in 2012.
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