TL;DR Breakdown
El Salvador is building a $4 M vet hospital to be funded by a bitcoin trust fund.Nayib Bukele said that money for the investment will be sourced from bitcoin trust fund insisting that no bitcoin would be sold.
On Oct 10, El Salvador’s president, revealed via Twitter that his country is set to invest back profits from a bitcoin trust into a new hospital for animals in the country’s capital. In his tweet, he revealed that the bitcoin trust is currently valued at $4M, just a short time after adopting the digital coin as a mainstream currency.
The president said that some of the funds will be used for the construction of a modern veterinary hospital having a rehabilitation unit, four theatres, four emergency units, and a total of 19 offices. While announcing the latest development, Bukele was quoted saying that they decided to invest in the project that will help in caring for their furry friends.
According to Bukele, the new hospital will have a capacity of handlinging over 60 surgeries, over 120 emergency cases, and attending taking care of over 400 otherl appointments each day. He shared a computer-generated blueprint of the new project on his Twitter account.
Bitcoin profits for vet hospital cause mixed reaction
The noble idea of building a vet hospital was however not well-received by everyone. On Twitter, some Salvadorans felt that the country’s bitcoin profits should have been used in other ways.
According to Norma De Serrano, the funds should have been used to upgrade the existing hospitals across the country. He insisted that most medical facilities in El Salvador needed an upgrade. Most Salvadorans had similar opinions on the matter.
Besides upgrading the health sector, others felt that the money should have been used for developing infrastructure in the whole country and not only in the main city. Infact, some critical tweets harshly addressed the government for its laxity to improve the country’s infrastructure.
Bitcoin adoption in El Salvador
On June 15, bitcoin became a legal tender in the country, making it the first country to recognize the digital coin into the mainstream currency. A couple of days later El Salvador’s Bitcoin law was passed to take effect on September 7. Bitcoin adoption meant that businesses would have to accept it for payment.
Initially El Salvador purchased 200 BTC but later increased its holding to 400 BTC when the country’s legislature passed a $150M BTC fund. The fund was to facilitate the conversion of BTC to USD.
The latest development came after the market capitalization of bitcoin reached the $1 trillion mark in the past 6 months. The past week saw BTC rallying roughly 20%; from $47,000 to over $55,000.