President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele has confirmed on Thursday that the country has taken advantage of the current bear market to purchase 80 BTC. According to President Bukele, El Salvador’s last BTC purchase was back in May when the American country purchased about 500 coins for $15.3 million, at the price of $30,744 each. However, according to CoinDesk data, El Salvador is 55.03% down on its Bitcoin bet.

Since she started purchasing, the country has bought 2301 coins which have cost close to $103.9 million but the current worth of those coins is about $46.6 million. This is due to the current unfriendly market downtrend which has heavily affected the prices of cryptocurrency negatively.

The country’s President is not one to be intimidated by market downturns even if that situation could put the state coffers in trouble. In May, El Salvador’s Finance minister said the Bitcoin amount that El Salvador had purchased at that time represented a paltry 0.5% of its budget annually, adding that any Bitcoin losses would extremely minimally affect the country’s fiscal position.

El Salvador’s purchase supported the crypto prices briefly, helping the coin retake the $20,000 support for a few hours. This came after the world’s largest cryptocurrency tumbled below $19,000 on Thursday, tanking to as low as $18,763 in the middle of a bigger rout in more risk-driven markets. The El Salvador purchase support was short-lived however as the coin is back in the $19,000 range once again.

A recent forecast by crypto/financial market analyzers predicts the time. falling up to $13,000, which would be its lowest since 2020, but this could also herald a recovery to about $28,000 by the end of the year. In the short term, Bitcoin will have to contend with a looming U.S. recession, which will hugely impact any capital flows to the token.

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