Nayib Bukele, the former President of El Salvador who recently stepped down to focus on his 2024 re-election campaign, has revealed the country’s Bitcoin investments are worth over $130 million and are sitting on a net profit of $3.6 million.

Brazil’s largest bank, Itaú Unibanco, has reportedly introduced a cryptocurrency trading service to its investment platform, allowing its clients to trade Bitcoin and Ether.

The CEO of renowned investment management company Franklin Templeton, Jenny Johnson, has revealed that her personal investment portfolio includes stakes in several leading cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ether, Uniswap’s UNI, and SushiSwap’s SUSHI.

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• El Salvador’s Bitcoin Stash Swings Into Profit
• Brazil’s Largest Bank Launches Bitcoin and Ether Trading
• CEO of $1.5 Trillion Investment Giant Holds Bitcoin, Ether, and DeFi Tokens
• Coinbase Leads Crypto Stocks Rally With 55.3% Gain in November

El Salvador’s Bitcoin Stash Swings Into Profit

Nayib Bukele, the former President of El Salvador who recently stepped down to focus on his 2024 re-election campaign, has revealed the country’s Bitcoin investments are worth over $130 million and are sitting on a net profit of $3.6 million.

Bukele noted on social media that El Salvador’s stance on its Bitcoin investments is that it has “no intention of selling” as that has never been its objective. Per Bukele, the country’s government is “fully aware that the price will continue to fluctuate in the future” but added this doesn’t affect its long-term strategy.

El Salvador became the first in the world to accept the cryptocurrency as legal tender, alongside the U.S. dollar, in September 2021 in an effort to boost its economy, encourage investment, and make financial services more accessible to its citizens.

Since then, the country has made numerous Bitcoin purchases throughout the bear market, with its Bitcoin portfolio at one point falling to $45 million from a book value of $103.9 million.

The country’s Bitcoin stash became profitable after a recent rise that saw BTC’s price surpass the $40,000 mark for the first time since May 2022.

Brazil’s Largest Bank Launches Bitcoin and Ether Trading

Brazil’s largest bank, Itaú Unibanco, has reportedly introduced a cryptocurrency trading service to its investment platform, allowing its clients to trade in Bitcoin and Ether.

Itaú Unibanco is Brazil’s largest bank by assets and a leading lender in Latin America. Its debut in the cryptocurrency space, according to its digital asset head Guto Antunes, will include more digital assets in the future.

The cryptocurrency trading service will use Itaú Bank as its custodian, storing the assets for its clients. According to Antunes, Itaú’s clients won’t be able to deposit or withdraw crypto using external wallets.

The move comes as Brazil’s largest lenders, which also include Santander Brasil and BTG Pactual, are growing their workforce and resources in anticipation of the nationwide rollout of the digital Brazilian real, the Drex.

CEO of $1.5 Trillion Investment Giant Holds Bitcoin, Ether, and DeFi Tokens

The CEO of renowned investment management company Franklin Templeton, Jenny Johnson, has revealed that her personal investment portfolio includes stakes in several leading cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ether, Uniswap’s UNI, and SushiSwap’s SUSHI.

Johnson, who is well-known for her bullish stance on the potential of blockchain technology noted these are “small” investments in her portfolio. She also voiced skepticism about Bitcoin, labeling it a “distraction” from the broader potential of blockchain technology.

Franklin Templeton, under Johnson's leadership and with approximately $1.5 trillion in assets under management, has been actively exploring blockchain applications. The company offers an OnChain U.S. Government Money Market Fund (FOBXX), which operates on Stella and Ethereum layer-2 network Polygon.

Coinbase Leads Crypto Stocks Rally With 55.3% Gain in November

Last month the price of various publicly traded digital assets-related companies saw their stock prices experience notable gains, with Coinbase (COIN) leading the surge with a 55.3% rise.

Behind it came Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA) and Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY) which saw their prices rise 28% and 24%, respectively. This performance came amid an overall stock market uptick that saw the S&P 500 rise 8.5%.

Dig deeper into the world of cryptocurrency trading with CCData’s latest Digital Asset Management Review.

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