Investors have so far committed $300 million towards El Salvador’s bitcoin-backed bonds, according to Samson Mow, chief strategy officer of Blockstream.
? El Salvador is planning to sell $1 billion in U.S. dollar-denominated 10-year bonds with a coupon of 6.5%. The securities will only be issued sometime in the first three months of 2022.
? Canadian blockchain firm Blockstream will be bookrunners in an issue processed by crypto exchange Bitfinex.
? In a tweet on Dec. 7, Mow, the main architect of the bitcoin bond, the $300 million represented only “verbal commitments” at this stage.
? The final term sheet – a non-binding agreement highlighting the basic terms and conditions of an investment – was also not yet ready, he added.
? However, the “verbal commitments” mean that the El Salvador bitcoin bond, or EBB1, as its ticker will reflect at launch, is “already 30% filled” several weeks ahead of official launch.
? Of the $1 billion that El Salvador is targeting to raise, $500 million will be used to construct energy and bitcoin mining infrastructure and $500 million to buy even more bitcoin, to be kept in cold storage within the country.
? El Salvador congressman William Soriano BeInCrypto on Dec. 4 that the Central American country is planning to issue up to 10 bitcoin bonds in future. Proceeds will be used to build the city and to pay-off the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
? EBB1 is structured in a way that targets both traditional institutional investors and ordinary people. Mow says the bond will be sold in $100 tranches to “democratize access to the bond”.
? “That’s the whole point, an instrument that empowers the people just as bitcoin empowers the people,” he
