6 ms·

> ...the government had purchased nearly $25 million worth of bitcoin... > ...a $800 million Eurobond repayment due in January 2023... Dont think the losing of

by fbn79 4y ago

> ...the government had purchased nearly $25 million worth of bitcoin... > ...a $800 million Eurobond repayment due in January 2023... Dont think the losing of bitcoin value can be blamed in case of default

JohnJamesRambo 4y ago
Bukele showed up in the latter stages of a bull market and thought he was a genius that had discovered a money making machine. Just like Saylor and Elon. It happens every cycle. They will all be tested. No one gets through the door easily. The genius was ignoring recency bias and buying BTC at the bottom at 3k in 2018 and selling your coins to Elon last year. The amount Bukele bought is tiny. Bitcoin and crypto are a threat to the IMF system. They aren’t going to like it when you do that. To survive without the IMF, you would have to go all in at a generational bottom. That did not happen.
- el-salvador 4y ago
  > Bitcoin and crypto are a threat to the IMF system. They aren’t going to like it when you do that. To survive without the IMF, you would have to go all in at a generational bottom. That did not happen. In the large scale, El Salvador's BTC fund is not that big. I mean, El Salvador has more IMF shares than Bitcoins in their fund. - El Salvador Bitcoin: 74 million USD [2] - El Salvador IMF shares: 402 million USD (207 million SDRs) [1] [1] https://www.imf.org/en/About/executive-board/members-quotas https://www.imf.org/en/About/executive-board/members-quotas [2] https://nayibtracker.com/ https://nayibtracker.com/
- matheusmoreira 4y ago
  > Bitcoin and crypto are a threat to the IMF system. Can you elaborate on this?
- arinlen 4y ago
  > Bitcoin and crypto are a threat to the IMF system. They aren’t going to like it when you do that. To survive without the IMF, you would have to go all in at a generational bottom. That did not happen. I see this conspiracy theory thrown somewhat often, but it has the same substance than any qanon-type "they" story. Meanwhile, supporters of this conspiracy theory fail to explain why adopting a highly volatile and manipulation-prone asset as a nation's legal tender is not a completely brain-dead belief, as it fails any of the basic properties of money. Another detail that btc conspiracy theorists fail to mention is how every single concern expressed by the IMF regarding El Salvador's Bitcoin push was already proven right. But crypto-bros hand-wave around the subject and it never ceases to be fool-proof.
throw8383833jj 4y ago
i know this will get downvoted heavily, but considering how rapidly fiat currencies are loosing value, I'd say the investment in bitcoin is an excellent long term bet and even by jan 2023, likely to look good. history will judge.
- taylodl 4y ago
  How do you figure? The price of gold today in USD is up 4.4% of where it was from the highs 10 years ago. That's not indicative of a fiat currency rapidly losing value. If you consider the price of gold today vs. where it was at its lowest point over the previous 10 years (USD had most value, just before Trump took office) then gold has gone up 42.76% (meaning the USD has lost considerable value since 2016). You can look at the charts and see when the trade war started with China and see when the Pandemic hit. Even so, since Biden has been in office the USD has been gaining in value (as measured by gold) and given the action of the Fed last week it will gain even more value (in fact that's been the financial news the past few weeks - the USD gaining value). Again this doesn't support the claim that fiat currencies are rapidly losing value. I'm getting my information on the price of gold here - https://goldprice.org/gold-price-history.html https://goldprice.org/gold-price-history.html
  - throw8383833jj 4y ago
    i calculated the average increase of roughly 7%-8% for the last 20 years, according to the site you mentioned (+490% over 20 years). And, you look at inflation of almost anything from housing to gas, most of it averaged 4-4.5%. We hardly need a basket of goods to average across anymore since most of people's earning now go to housing, at least for the latest generation. Case shiller shows housing was already going up at 4% per year on average for the last 20 years, and that was before the pandemic. So, yeah, the dollar and all the other fiats, for the last 20 years have been crashing at least 4% per year. and the CPI, as it was calculating using the older methods (before congress told them to start under-reporting inflation) can confirm this. You can find out all about this on http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts if you read all the foot notes you can find out inflation measurements have changed in order to under report it. So, we had at least 4% pre pandemic and now closer to 10-11% (real CPI as reported on shadowstats, is always about 2% higher than the fake BLS numbers) per year though it looks like it will diminish.
neither_color 4y ago
For perspective, the previous president of El Salvador is in exile for his alleged role in the embezzlement of $300+ million. https://apnews.com/article/caribbean-el-salvador-a08341e381055b2602fe1b335c1ff706 https://apnews.com/article/caribbean-el-salvador-a08341e3810... A 2% speculative investment in an emerging technology is a drop in the bucket compared to what El Salvador has been through in the past 30 years, with multiple past presidents arrested or fleeing the country following corruption charges. By multiple verifiable metrics(homicide rate, covid response, gdp growth) El Salvador is in a far better place now than it's been in decades.
- arinlen 4y ago
  > A 2% speculative investment in an emerging technology is a drop in the bucket compared to what El Salvador has been through in the past 30 years, with multiple past presidents arrested or fleeing the country following corruption charges. That's an extremely generous and charitable interpretation. El Salvador's investment in btc is hardly relevant with regards to it's nominal cost. It is however significant in the impact it has on El Salvador being able to refinance it's sovereign debt and earn trust in the country's institutions. Trying to argue that today's sad state of affairs is not that bad because some point in the past the state of affairs was also sad is not a path forward.
- el-salvador 4y ago
  > For perspective, the previous president of El Salvador is in exile for his alleged role in the embezzlement of $300+ million. All of those cases were discovered and judged thanks to: a) The separation of the Executive/Legislative/Judicial powers b) The Public Access Information Law. c) The help of independent journalism I don't agree with removing the checks and balances that helped discovered these cases in the first place. The first two a) and b) have been dismantled by the current administration in the past year. The third, c), independent journalism, is constantly under attack from government and allied media outlets and influencers. Just a couple of weeks ago, the Head of Congress told the independent press "to go away". This happened live, on the podium, while presiding a session. Quoting what the Head of Congress said: "Ask for asylum. Get asylum and go way Go away. You don't contribute anything here.... We don't need you. Go away. " Video: https://twitter.com/CronistaOscar/status/1516602424672280579 https://twitter.com/CronistaOscar/status/1516602424672280579 This was around about the same time when congress approved a law that punishes (with prison) certain kinds of reporting about gangs.
hathym 4y ago
apparently they were counting on bitcoin going to the moon to repay their $800 millions debt with the $25 million investment.
arcticbull 4y ago
After and due to their failed attempt to raise a "Bitcoin bond," the market doesn't believe in the government. Their non-Bitcoin based sovereign debt is now trading at 30 cents on the dollar, down from 94 cents on the dollar last March. [1] This makes it all but impossible for them to raise more sovereign debt on the capital markets. I don't think it's the price of Bitcoin so much as their going all-in on it and then seeing their gamble collapse out from under them. They've now lost money on all the "dip buys" their dictator was tweeting about - in English only - to show off to the laser-eyed. Their issue is that they showed such poor judgement. [edit] Further, of course, they're thumbing their nose at the IMF by refusing to roll back BTC-as-tender. No matter what you think of that demand or that policy decision, if the IMF is the only one lined up to bail you out, it's their way or the high way. [1] https://www.boerse-frankfurt.de/bond/usp01012ca29-el-salvador-republik-7-125-19-50 https://www.boerse-frankfurt.de/bond/usp01012ca29-el-salvado...
- loceng 4y ago
  > Their issue is that they showed such poor judgement. The "they" in your statement is solely the dictator, no?
- nopq 4y ago
  > their dictator El Salvador is a parlamentary Republic with independent political parties and an elected president. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_El_Salvador https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_El_Salvador
  - nsn90 4y ago
    salvadorean here, dictatorship means absolute power, which he currently has now that they control the 3 branches [1] [1] https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/06/world/el-salvador-president-nayib-bukele-consecutive-terms-intl/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/06/world/el-salvador-preside...
    - 6sup6 4y ago
      Did he persecute people like Pinochet did? Calling him a dictator is like having someone saying that misgendering them caused them PTSD: it is putting war induced trauma in the same bag as whatever misgendering is.
octoberfranklin 4y ago
Another case of slimy headlining: writing "as" and hoping people hear "because". This problem is widespread these days.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 4y ago
  The problem that you are reading things that aren’t there?
  - scbrg 4y ago
    Please, the phrasing is obviously meant to make the reader jump to conclusions. The headline wasn't "El Salvador expected to default as Hacker News readers bicker about wording", even if that would have been equally true (and relevant?).
- el-salvador 4y ago
  IMHO thee headline in the Spanish original article was badly worded too "El mercado augura que El Salvador entrará en impago por haber convertido el bitcoin en moneda legal" https://elpais.com/america/economia/2022-05-09/el-mercado-augura-un-default-de-el-salvador-por-su-matrimonio-con-el-bitcoin.html https://elpais.com/america/economia/2022-05-09/el-mercado-au...
ak_111 4y ago
If you loan someone $100 and then find him going to vegas each weekend gambling $5 and spending the entire week boasting about what a genius he is and showing off his photos with his gambling friends, you will feel very uncomfortable loaning him more, even though his gambling habits are incrementally consuming a small portion of the loan you gave him.
- diffeomorphism 4y ago
  > you will feel very uncomfortable loaning him more, even though his gambling habits are incrementally consuming a small portion of the loan you gave him. So you are irrational and want to punish your client because of what hobby they pursue in their private/free time. If their hobby is expensive enough to have an impact, then it does concern you, but if it is just "$5$" then it is none of your business if they spend it on ice cream, a gym or gambling.
  - ak_111 4y ago
    You are taking the analogy too literally. Lending to a country/corporation is different to lending to a person. There is no such a thing as "free time" for a country. If the president wants to gamble his own wealth on bitcoin this is absolutely fine. Further, you would be punishing him if he renounced his gambling addiction, but if he is still convinced that his gambling adventures is the right course of action to preserve and create wealth for his country then withholding fund is actually for his benefit.
    - logicalmonster 4y ago
      > Lending to a country/corporation is different to lending to a person > If the president wants to gamble his own wealth on bitcoin this is absolutely fine. So, how would you fix El Salvador and give their people the best chance at a good life? A lot of the anti-crypto sentiment on HN portrayed El Salvador's actions as a very bad and irresponsible move, but I'd say that the President of El Salvador is not only making the right move for his country, but personally has far more skin in the game than any democratically elected leader from most other countries. If his move doesn't work out in the long-run, he will likely eventually be violently removed from office. Hell, he risks assassination from other countries too merely for "stepping out of his lane", so to speak. Why is it the right move for his country? How much of a gamble is any action when you don't have much to lose? I don't want to disparage El Salvadoran people in any way: but the reality is that they're a very poor country with a very bad education system and not much industry and have had major crime problems, and many of their people who build up some success and resources in life still see their best path to success as finding a way to get into other countries. Their only real path out of this situation is either humanity inventing free energy and replicators to give them unlimited resources, or them taking a shot at being a friendly jurisdiction for the next major industry and technology before everybody else truly embraces it. They're like a small-market NBA team with no real chance of winning a title without tanking. Everybody is going to rip them for tanking, but that's their only real path to win. El Salvador is now in a non-zero position to be a wealthier country in the long run. That's much better than the basically 0 percent chance they had before their crypto actions.
espadrine 4y ago
>> ...the government had purchased nearly $25 million worth of bitcoin... > Dont think the losing of bitcoin value can be blamed in case of default Volatility makes it difficult to represent the true economic impact of this situation. From scarce and needlessly secret information, their bitcoin holdings were worth over $100M earlier this year[0], a consequential portion of the repayment. More importantly, while they have historically claimed that they would always “buy the dip”, there is no indication of when they sold, and a few indications that they have turned a loss on the investment so far. Meanwhile, the payments are due at fixed periods, which may force them to sell unfavourably. A year after the 2018 high, it was at a fourth of its high value. What they now consider “dips” may well be seen as highs then. Plus, their policies have an effect on the rest. In short, they don’t have a strong case on finding financing apart from their crypto bet[1]: > The downgrade of El Salvador's rating is driven in good part by the lack of a credible financing plan which they would need, to cover their worsening position[2]: > The government faces only USD305 million in external debt amortizations in 2022, but faces close to USD1.2 billion in 2023 > El Salvador will likely face a funding gap of about 1% of GDP [0]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-12/bitcoin-trading-president-likely-loses-money-for-el-salvadorans https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-12/bitcoin-t... [1]: https://www.moodys.com/research/--PR_464838 https://www.moodys.com/research/--PR_464838 [2]: https://www.fitchratings.com/research/sovereigns/fitch-downgrades-el-salvador-long-term-idr-to-ccc-from-b-09-02-2022 https://www.fitchratings.com/research/sovereigns/fitch-downg...

by fbn79 4y ago

JohnJamesRambo 4y ago

Bukele showed up in the latter stages of a bull market and thought he was a genius that had discovered a money making machine. Just like Saylor and Elon. It happens every cycle. They will all be tested. No one gets through the door easily. The genius was ignoring recency bias and buying BTC at the bottom at 3k in 2018 and selling your coins to Elon last year. The amount Bukele bought is tiny. Bitcoin and crypto are a threat to the IMF system. They aren’t going to like it when you do that. To survive without the IMF, you would have to go all in at a generational bottom. That did not happen.

el-salvador 4y ago
> Bitcoin and crypto are a threat to the IMF system. They aren’t going to like it when you do that. To survive without the IMF, you would have to go all in at a generational bottom. That did not happen. In the large scale, El Salvador's BTC fund is not that big. I mean, El Salvador has more IMF shares than Bitcoins in their fund. - El Salvador Bitcoin: 74 million USD [2] - El Salvador IMF shares: 402 million USD (207 million SDRs) [1] [1] https://www.imf.org/en/About/executive-board/members-quotas https://www.imf.org/en/About/executive-board/members-quotas [2] https://nayibtracker.com/ https://nayibtracker.com/
matheusmoreira 4y ago
> Bitcoin and crypto are a threat to the IMF system. Can you elaborate on this?
arinlen 4y ago
> Bitcoin and crypto are a threat to the IMF system. They aren’t going to like it when you do that. To survive without the IMF, you would have to go all in at a generational bottom. That did not happen. I see this conspiracy theory thrown somewhat often, but it has the same substance than any qanon-type "they" story. Meanwhile, supporters of this conspiracy theory fail to explain why adopting a highly volatile and manipulation-prone asset as a nation's legal tender is not a completely brain-dead belief, as it fails any of the basic properties of money. Another detail that btc conspiracy theorists fail to mention is how every single concern expressed by the IMF regarding El Salvador's Bitcoin push was already proven right. But crypto-bros hand-wave around the subject and it never ceases to be fool-proof.

throw8383833jj 4y ago

i know this will get downvoted heavily, but considering how rapidly fiat currencies are loosing value, I'd say the investment in bitcoin is an excellent long term bet and even by jan 2023, likely to look good. history will judge.

taylodl 4y ago
How do you figure? The price of gold today in USD is up 4.4% of where it was from the highs 10 years ago. That's not indicative of a fiat currency rapidly losing value. If you consider the price of gold today vs. where it was at its lowest point over the previous 10 years (USD had most value, just before Trump took office) then gold has gone up 42.76% (meaning the USD has lost considerable value since 2016). You can look at the charts and see when the trade war started with China and see when the Pandemic hit. Even so, since Biden has been in office the USD has been gaining in value (as measured by gold) and given the action of the Fed last week it will gain even more value (in fact that's been the financial news the past few weeks - the USD gaining value). Again this doesn't support the claim that fiat currencies are rapidly losing value. I'm getting my information on the price of gold here - https://goldprice.org/gold-price-history.html https://goldprice.org/gold-price-history.html
- throw8383833jj 4y ago
  i calculated the average increase of roughly 7%-8% for the last 20 years, according to the site you mentioned (+490% over 20 years). And, you look at inflation of almost anything from housing to gas, most of it averaged 4-4.5%. We hardly need a basket of goods to average across anymore since most of people's earning now go to housing, at least for the latest generation. Case shiller shows housing was already going up at 4% per year on average for the last 20 years, and that was before the pandemic. So, yeah, the dollar and all the other fiats, for the last 20 years have been crashing at least 4% per year. and the CPI, as it was calculating using the older methods (before congress told them to start under-reporting inflation) can confirm this. You can find out all about this on http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts if you read all the foot notes you can find out inflation measurements have changed in order to under report it. So, we had at least 4% pre pandemic and now closer to 10-11% (real CPI as reported on shadowstats, is always about 2% higher than the fake BLS numbers) per year though it looks like it will diminish.

neither_color 4y ago

For perspective, the previous president of El Salvador is in exile for his alleged role in the embezzlement of $300+ million. https://apnews.com/article/caribbean-el-salvador-a08341e381055b2602fe1b335c1ff706 https://apnews.com/article/caribbean-el-salvador-a08341e3810... A 2% speculative investment in an emerging technology is a drop in the bucket compared to what El Salvador has been through in the past 30 years, with multiple past presidents arrested or fleeing the country following corruption charges. By multiple verifiable metrics(homicide rate, covid response, gdp growth) El Salvador is in a far better place now than it's been in decades.

arinlen 4y ago
> A 2% speculative investment in an emerging technology is a drop in the bucket compared to what El Salvador has been through in the past 30 years, with multiple past presidents arrested or fleeing the country following corruption charges. That's an extremely generous and charitable interpretation. El Salvador's investment in btc is hardly relevant with regards to it's nominal cost. It is however significant in the impact it has on El Salvador being able to refinance it's sovereign debt and earn trust in the country's institutions. Trying to argue that today's sad state of affairs is not that bad because some point in the past the state of affairs was also sad is not a path forward.
el-salvador 4y ago
> For perspective, the previous president of El Salvador is in exile for his alleged role in the embezzlement of $300+ million. All of those cases were discovered and judged thanks to: a) The separation of the Executive/Legislative/Judicial powers b) The Public Access Information Law. c) The help of independent journalism I don't agree with removing the checks and balances that helped discovered these cases in the first place. The first two a) and b) have been dismantled by the current administration in the past year. The third, c), independent journalism, is constantly under attack from government and allied media outlets and influencers. Just a couple of weeks ago, the Head of Congress told the independent press "to go away". This happened live, on the podium, while presiding a session. Quoting what the Head of Congress said: "Ask for asylum. Get asylum and go way Go away. You don't contribute anything here.... We don't need you. Go away. " Video: https://twitter.com/CronistaOscar/status/1516602424672280579 https://twitter.com/CronistaOscar/status/1516602424672280579 This was around about the same time when congress approved a law that punishes (with prison) certain kinds of reporting about gangs.

hathym 4y ago

apparently they were counting on bitcoin going to the moon to repay their $800 millions debt with the $25 million investment.

arcticbull 4y ago

After and due to their failed attempt to raise a "Bitcoin bond," the market doesn't believe in the government. Their non-Bitcoin based sovereign debt is now trading at 30 cents on the dollar, down from 94 cents on the dollar last March. [1] This makes it all but impossible for them to raise more sovereign debt on the capital markets. I don't think it's the price of Bitcoin so much as their going all-in on it and then seeing their gamble collapse out from under them. They've now lost money on all the "dip buys" their dictator was tweeting about - in English only - to show off to the laser-eyed. Their issue is that they showed such poor judgement. [edit] Further, of course, they're thumbing their nose at the IMF by refusing to roll back BTC-as-tender. No matter what you think of that demand or that policy decision, if the IMF is the only one lined up to bail you out, it's their way or the high way. [1] https://www.boerse-frankfurt.de/bond/usp01012ca29-el-salvador-republik-7-125-19-50 https://www.boerse-frankfurt.de/bond/usp01012ca29-el-salvado...

loceng 4y ago
> Their issue is that they showed such poor judgement. The "they" in your statement is solely the dictator, no?
nopq 4y ago
> their dictator El Salvador is a parlamentary Republic with independent political parties and an elected president. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_El_Salvador https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_El_Salvador
- nsn90 4y ago
  salvadorean here, dictatorship means absolute power, which he currently has now that they control the 3 branches [1] [1] https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/06/world/el-salvador-president-nayib-bukele-consecutive-terms-intl/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/06/world/el-salvador-preside...
  - 6sup6 4y ago
    Did he persecute people like Pinochet did? Calling him a dictator is like having someone saying that misgendering them caused them PTSD: it is putting war induced trauma in the same bag as whatever misgendering is.

octoberfranklin 4y ago

Another case of slimy headlining: writing "as" and hoping people hear "because". This problem is widespread these days.

IfOnlyYouKnew 4y ago
The problem that you are reading things that aren’t there?
- scbrg 4y ago
  Please, the phrasing is obviously meant to make the reader jump to conclusions. The headline wasn't "El Salvador expected to default as Hacker News readers bicker about wording", even if that would have been equally true (and relevant?).
el-salvador 4y ago
IMHO thee headline in the Spanish original article was badly worded too "El mercado augura que El Salvador entrará en impago por haber convertido el bitcoin en moneda legal" https://elpais.com/america/economia/2022-05-09/el-mercado-augura-un-default-de-el-salvador-por-su-matrimonio-con-el-bitcoin.html https://elpais.com/america/economia/2022-05-09/el-mercado-au...

ak_111 4y ago

If you loan someone $100 and then find him going to vegas each weekend gambling $5 and spending the entire week boasting about what a genius he is and showing off his photos with his gambling friends, you will feel very uncomfortable loaning him more, even though his gambling habits are incrementally consuming a small portion of the loan you gave him.

diffeomorphism 4y ago
> you will feel very uncomfortable loaning him more, even though his gambling habits are incrementally consuming a small portion of the loan you gave him. So you are irrational and want to punish your client because of what hobby they pursue in their private/free time. If their hobby is expensive enough to have an impact, then it does concern you, but if it is just "$5$" then it is none of your business if they spend it on ice cream, a gym or gambling.
- ak_111 4y ago
  You are taking the analogy too literally. Lending to a country/corporation is different to lending to a person. There is no such a thing as "free time" for a country. If the president wants to gamble his own wealth on bitcoin this is absolutely fine. Further, you would be punishing him if he renounced his gambling addiction, but if he is still convinced that his gambling adventures is the right course of action to preserve and create wealth for his country then withholding fund is actually for his benefit.
  - logicalmonster 4y ago
    > Lending to a country/corporation is different to lending to a person > If the president wants to gamble his own wealth on bitcoin this is absolutely fine. So, how would you fix El Salvador and give their people the best chance at a good life? A lot of the anti-crypto sentiment on HN portrayed El Salvador's actions as a very bad and irresponsible move, but I'd say that the President of El Salvador is not only making the right move for his country, but personally has far more skin in the game than any democratically elected leader from most other countries. If his move doesn't work out in the long-run, he will likely eventually be violently removed from office. Hell, he risks assassination from other countries too merely for "stepping out of his lane", so to speak. Why is it the right move for his country? How much of a gamble is any action when you don't have much to lose? I don't want to disparage El Salvadoran people in any way: but the reality is that they're a very poor country with a very bad education system and not much industry and have had major crime problems, and many of their people who build up some success and resources in life still see their best path to success as finding a way to get into other countries. Their only real path out of this situation is either humanity inventing free energy and replicators to give them unlimited resources, or them taking a shot at being a friendly jurisdiction for the next major industry and technology before everybody else truly embraces it. They're like a small-market NBA team with no real chance of winning a title without tanking. Everybody is going to rip them for tanking, but that's their only real path to win. El Salvador is now in a non-zero position to be a wealthier country in the long run. That's much better than the basically 0 percent chance they had before their crypto actions.

espadrine 4y ago

>> ...the government had purchased nearly $25 million worth of bitcoin... > Dont think the losing of bitcoin value can be blamed in case of default Volatility makes it difficult to represent the true economic impact of this situation. From scarce and needlessly secret information, their bitcoin holdings were worth over $100M earlier this year[0], a consequential portion of the repayment. More importantly, while they have historically claimed that they would always “buy the dip”, there is no indication of when they sold, and a few indications that they have turned a loss on the investment so far. Meanwhile, the payments are due at fixed periods, which may force them to sell unfavourably. A year after the 2018 high, it was at a fourth of its high value. What they now consider “dips” may well be seen as highs then. Plus, their policies have an effect on the rest. In short, they don’t have a strong case on finding financing apart from their crypto bet[1]: > The downgrade of El Salvador's rating is driven in good part by the lack of a credible financing plan which they would need, to cover their worsening position[2]: > The government faces only USD305 million in external debt amortizations in 2022, but faces close to USD1.2 billion in 2023 > El Salvador will likely face a funding gap of about 1% of GDP [0]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-12/bitcoin-trading-president-likely-loses-money-for-el-salvadorans https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-12/bitcoin-t... [1]: https://www.moodys.com/research/--PR_464838 https://www.moodys.com/research/--PR_464838 [2]: https://www.fitchratings.com/research/sovereigns/fitch-downgrades-el-salvador-long-term-idr-to-ccc-from-b-09-02-2022 https://www.fitchratings.com/research/sovereigns/fitch-downg...