Bitcoin nursed losses Wednesday after plunging amid El Salvador’s troubled rollout of the largest cryptocurrency as legal tender.
The virtual coin was trading near $46,260 as of 12:32 p.m. in New York, having slid as much as 17% a day earlier before paring some of the losses. The downdraft also swept across tokens such as Ether and Dogecoin, as well as the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index.
El Salvador’s experiment with Bitcoin — the biggest test of the token’s real-world usefulness — had a rocky start because of technical glitches to the official digital wallet.
El Salvador disconnected the wallet between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m. to fix bugs, President Nayib Bukele said Wednesday.
Food and drink franchises including Starbucks and Pizza Hut are receiving payments in the cryptocurrency, according to Bukele. Businesses are required to accept Bitcoin in exchange for goods and services, though merchants who are technologically unable to receive the e-currency are exempt.
The country now holds 550 Bitcoins after buying more when the price fell, Bukele said.
“Social media platforms were very cautious over the weekend that a plunge could occur following El Salvador’s big day,” Edward Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda Corp., wrote in a note. Some investors likely bought in anticipation of the nation implementing its Bitcoin law Sept. 7 and then moved to “sell the fact,” he said.
