El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele recently revealed a layout of the Bitcoin City, shortly after the nation bought the dip.
Bukele Reveals BTC City Architectural Plans
On his Twitter account, Bukele shared pictures of the city’s urbanistic layout accompanied by the caption “BTC City coming along beautifully.” The project —announced last November— showcases four detailed landmarks said to be built throughout La Unión, a small Salvadorean municipality.
The government said BTC City will come with zero income, capital gains, payroll or municipal taxes as well as 0% CO2 emissions.
#Bitcoin City is coming along beautifully ❤️ pic.twitter.com/A6ay8aAREW
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) May 9, 2022
As the images show, BTC City will feature several public squares, public roads, a seaport and various centerpieces, one of which looks like a gigantic Bitcoin. Of course, the city is not golden —it’s just the design color chosen by Fernando Romero, a renowned Mexican architect. Bukele also revealed that BTC City will host an international airport.
As such BTC City will host several green and blue spaces, connoting Bukele’s goal of creating the city with a vast amount of water and trees.
Bukele also shared an image of what is a lookout built atop the volcano that’s being used to power BTC mining. It features a ring hoisted above the boardwalk, which serves as a balcony for citizens.
Last week, the government announced the Salvadoran Bitcoin Bonds, a financial instrument that would help in the building process of BTC City.
The government said the bonds were scheduled for issuance earlier this year. However, Treasury Minister Alejandro Zelaya announced the date of the launch had to be postponed due to the “current state of global markets”—especially after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Finally, the president share an image of how the city at night would look something like this:
Bitcoin Falls 50% From Its ATH —El Salvador Buys the Dip
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $31,569. BTC has fallen more than 10% in the last seven days and has dropped 50% from last year’s all-time high. Most high-profile currencies tanked significantly this week, with the second-largest currency by market cap Ethereum (ETH) also losing 50% of its price, and currently trading at $2,324, as per data from Coinmarketcap.
However, Bukele thinks current market conditions are ideal to start buying. On May 9, the president announced the country had bought 500 BTC at an average price of $30,744 each —approximately $15.5 million at that time. This is by far the largest amount of Bitcoin that a Latin American country has purchased.
El Salvador just bought the dip! 🇸🇻
500 coins at an average USD price of ~$30,744 🥳#Bitcoin
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) May 9, 2022
The overall crypto market has shed blood in the last five weeks. This is the biggest sell-off since March 2020 and most analysts in the crypto community signal the US stock market plunge as the trigger.
On May 9, the US Federal Reserve said it will raise interests by 50 basis points (bps) —the biggest rates spike in 22 years. The market took another hit when Terra, the DeFi (decentralized finance) protocol behind the Luna token, sold $750 million worth of BTC causing a broader market bloodbath by triggering massive sell-offs.
Terra’s Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) tried to disguise the selling as a loan to OTC (over-the-counter) trading firms, saying the same amount of BTC would be bought as soon as the market starts recovering.
