Analysis-Crypto crash leaves El Salvador with no easy exit from worsening crisis

FILE PHOTO - A sign reading “Pay with Bitcoin here” is set in a furniture store in San Salvador, El Salvador March 10, 2022. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas

SAN SALVADOR/NEW YORK (Reuters) - El Salvador's big bet on bitcoin, which the Central American nation has been buying since September, has soured in recent weeks as a cryptocurrency rout shaved over a third of the value of the government's holdings, Reuters calculations show.

Under populist President Nayib Bukele, a vocal cheerleader for the currency, El Salvador went all-in on bitcoin, not just becoming the world's first country to adopt it as a legal tender but also sketching out plans for a volcano-powered crypto mining hub and plans to issue the first sovereign bond linked to the coin.