The bet made on bitcoin (BTC) by Nayib Bukele, president of El Salvador, is costing the country dearly, according to calculations made by Bloomberg.

Bet on Bitcoin has already generated a loss of $12 million for El Salvador

Based on Bukele’s frequent announcements on Twitter about acquiring bitcoin alone, the Salvadoran president bought 1,391 BTC.

These acquisitions, according to the outlet, cost the country approximately $71 billion, based on an average price of $51,056 per bitcoin.

Assuming the government still holds all these bitcoins, the total amount purchased is now equivalent to nearly $59 million at current prices.

This means that Bukele’s bitcoin acquisitions cost El Salvador’s public coffers approximately $12 million.

Read more:

• Apple suspended product sales in Turkey due to economic crisis and high inflation rate
• “We are in a war against bitcoin,” says Turkey’s president
• In the middle of an economic crisis, bitcoin already costs $100,000 in Turkey

Ricardo Castaneda, an economist at El Salvador’s Instituto de Estudos Fiscales de América Central, told Bloomberg:

“There is no official information on how much bitcoin the government has acquired, the price paid or how much is in the reserve.”

The news comes amid a long list of controversies surrounding the Salvadoran president’s accession of bitcoin as legal tender.