At one stage, Mr Bukele’s bitcoins were worth half of what he paid for them. But in the past week, the price has risen to $44,000 a coin, which is being put down to potential changes in financial rules around cryptocurrency in the US. But some economists in El Salvador and elsewhere say the moment is not as significant as Mr Bukele would like. The $120m his government has spent on buying coins is only a portion of the public funds used to promote Bitcoin to Salvadoreans since the country became the first to make it legal tender in parity with the US dollar, the country’s primary money. El Salvador’s president is celebrating after a Bitcoin reserve he bought with public money has entered the black amid the continuing Bitcoin price rise. Is El Salvador’s Bitcoin paying off ?

