El Salvador

An agreement between El Salvador and a group of private local banks to reprofile its short-term debt has helped extend a stellar rally in its international bonds, which have returned more than 90% this year, Reuters reported. The government announced last week that it accepted the proposal by eight private banks to extend the maturities of short term local bills into new two, three, five and seven year notes. The size of the operation is approximately $1.45 billion, the finance ministry told Reuters.

A public-private partnership in El Salvador will pump $1 billion into creating one of the world's largest bitcoin mining farms, the group called Volcano Energy announced on Monday, Reuters reported. The project will start with an initial $250 million, backed by "key Bitcoin industry leaders" in collaboration with renewable energy developers, Volcano Energy said in a statement. El Salvador's state "Bitcoin Office" retweeted the news on its Twitter. The presidential office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

El Salvador has tapped a former International Monetary Fund official as an adviser as it seeks a deal with the multilateral lender, Bloomberg News reported. Alejandro Werner, who retired as head of the Western Hemisphere Department at the IMF in 2021, has been working with the Central American nation’s government this year. President Nayib Bukele’s government has struggled to secure an extended fund facility agreement with the IMF, which has warned repeatedly against the risks of using Bitcoin as legal tender.

El Salvador’s Bitcoin-touting government is poised to deliver on a $604 million bond maturing this week, in a turn of events that leaves investors in distressed emerging-market debt with only one more big maturity to worry about this year, Bloomberg News reported. The Central American nation is widely expected to repay creditors on Tuesday after receiving a last-minute loan and undertaking two bond buybacks. The maturing note, which now hovers at about a penny below par, has soared by a whopping 34 cents from an all-time low in July.

El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele has pledged to buy Bitcoin at a pace of one coin per day starting Friday, November 8, Tokenistcom reported. The move comes as the flagship cryptocurrency has tumbled to two-year lows amid the recent collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX. In a Thursday tweet, President Nayib Bukele announced that they will start buying one BTC per day. “We are buying one Bitcoin every day starting tomorrow,” he said. However, the Bitcoin bull did not identify a cap for how many BTC coins he plans to acquire or for how long they will stick to the strategy.

El Salvador plans to repurchase about $1.6 billion in sovereign bonds at market prices, part of a plan to cut down on debt and stave off fears of a default, President Nayib Bukele said on Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported. Bukele said on Twitter that his government sent two bills to congress to secure funds for “a transparent, public and voluntary” repurchase offer for bonds maturing in 2023 and 2025 at market prices in about six weeks. “El Salvador has enough liquidity” to meet debt payments and to buy all of its own debt up to 2025 in advance, Bukele wrote.

El Salvador's bet on bitcoin was slashed on Tuesday by half as the more than $100 million in the country's publicly disclosed purchases dropped more than 50% in value, Reuters reported. The 10 purchases announced by President Nayib Bukele via Twitter have a market value of just over $51 million, with the biggest single trade - 420 coins at more than $59,000 per coin - down almost 63%. Bukele has said on Twitter at least four times that El Salvador has bought a "dip", a term used by traders to mean they took advantage of a price dislocation that resets for a quick gain.

President Nayib Bukele’s Bitcoin gambit is becoming onerous for El Salvador, but that isn’t stopping him from adding to his stockpile, Bloomberg News reported. The impoverished Central American country has bought 2,301 Bitcoins since making it legal tender in September, based on Bukele’s announcements on Twitter, including yesterday’s 500-coin purchase as the price fell below $31,000. The tokens are worth $74 million now, well below the $103 million Bukele paid for them, according to calculations by Bloomberg.

Salvadoran bond spreads to U.S. Treasuries spiked on Monday by the most in nearly seven weeks a day after Congress approved a monthlong extension of emergency measures President Nayib Bukele has said are necessary after a surge of gang killings, Reuters reported. Human rights groups say the measures infringe civil liberties and Bukele's critics say his control over Congress and the Courts has brought a backsliding on democracy. Bond prices have been on a downward swing for most of the past year, since Bukele's first overt moves to oust critics.