In an intriguing development this week, El Salvador took a significant step by moving a substantial portion of its Bitcoin reserves, valued at approximately $400 million, into cold storage. President Nayib Bukele shared this update, indicating that the country's holdings of the digital asset are much larger than previously estimated.

Bukele disclosed this move on the social media platform X, referring to it as the country's "first #Bitcoin piggy bank." He mentioned that the cold storage is secured in a physical vault on national territory and shared an image of a wallet containing 5,689.68 BTC, valued at around $411 million based on Thursday's market prices.

This revelation reveals that El Salvador's Bitcoin treasury is significantly larger than the less than 3,000 BTC estimated by public trackers earlier in the week. This announcement marks the first time Bukele has confirmed the country's holdings with a specific address, as previous updates were only made through social media posts.

In September 2021, El Salvador made history by becoming the first country to purchase Bitcoin as a treasury asset when the price of one coin was around $52,000. Today, prices exceed $72,000. The transfers into El Salvador's cold wallet occurred over the past week, with the majority happening on Thursday. Arkham Intelligence suggests that most of the Bitcoins came from Bitfinex.