You'd never think you'd live to hear "bitcoin" and "sovereign debt" in the same sentence, but it's 2021, and here we are.
At the culmination of "Bitcoin Week" in the beach town of Mizata in El Salvador on Saturday, the country's President Nayib Bukele took to the stage, backward cap and all, to announce plans to build the first-ever "bitcoin city," funded by the first-ever $1 billion "bitcoin volcano" bond.
Amid the cheers of crypto evangelists, Samson Mow, CSO of Blockstream, joined President Bukele on stage to outline the terms of the bond, secured via the Liquid Network and set to pay out a 6.5% coupon rate over ten years.
One-half of the bond would apply to geothermal power projects to give Bitcoin City's future miners access to clean power; hence the term "volcano bond." The term not only evokes Bitcoin City's eventual location, in the shadow of Mt. Conchagua, but also the dividends expected to erupt from the bond as it matures.
Mow explained that El Salvador would use the remaining $500 million from the bond to buy Bitcoin, which the country will then sell after a lockup period of five years.
Based on bitcoin's appreciation rate, Blockstream expects the instrument will offer investors a 146% return on an annualized basis, assuming El Salvador can sell off its horde of bitcoin at a profit.
On stage, Mow forecast $1 million bitcoin in just five years. El Salvador's plans put the comparatively tiny Latin American country on the path toward becoming "the financial center of the world," he said.
"The first countries that do this will have a massive advantage. This is the beginning of nation-state Bitcoin FOMO," Mow said, referring to fear of missing out among other countries expected to follow in El Salvador's footsteps.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin fell 16% during Bitcoin Week, declining every day except for Friday.
President Bukele has rebuffed concerns about the token's volatility with tweets about "buying the dip," a common refrain among crypto evangelists, who believe that ultimately the Bitcoin has nowhere to go but up.
Since becoming El Salvador's second legal denomination along with the U.S. dollar, Bukele's government has steadily rolled out at least 200 Chivo ATMs where Salvadorians can easily exchange bitcoin for cash.
On the ground, though, not everyone agrees with Bukele, with one demonstrator even torching a Chivo ATM in protest.
Thousands have taken to the streets since Bitcoin's denomination to protest both the standardization of the token and apparent overreaches by Bukele and his government.
Nevertheless, one month after gaining legal tender status, Forbes reported that 3 million people had registered for the country's official Chivo digital wallet, which came pre-loaded with $30 in Bitcoin.
The figures indicate that 46% of Salvadorians now have a bitcoin wallet compared with just 29% who had a bank account as of September 2017, the magazine reported.
Remittances sent by those working mainly in the United States account for roughly 20% of El Salvador's GDP, much of which is lost due to electronic transfer fees. In a Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) thread, President Bukele said that if remittances were transferred through Bitcoin instead, "that the amount received by more than a million low income families will increase in the equivalent of a billion dollars every year."
In the same thread, Bukele also pointed out that 70% of Salvadorians don't have a bank account, implying that they had few other means of digital payment besides bitcoin.
"Given bitcoin's high price volatility, its use as a legal tender entails significant risks to consumer protection, financial integrity, and financial stability," said the IMF in its closing statement as part of its Article IV advisory mission to the Latin American country. "Because of those risks, bitcoin should not be used as a legal tender. Staff recommends narrowing the scope of the bitcoin law and urges strengthening the regulation and supervision of the new payment ecosystem."
The statement came just a day after President Bukele announced his Bitcoin City plans.
"Although we obviously do not agree on some things, such as the adoption of #Bitcoin, the analysis it makes of our country is interesting," he said.