The cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex announced it will refund investors who invested in the Hilton hotel project at El Salvador’s international airport. The project failed to raise the minimum required fund of $500,000 to continue.
Public Offering Removed from Bitfinex’s Website
For those unaware, the Hilton hotel project represented the first public offering of digital debt assets in El Salvador and managed to raise only $342,000. A Bitfinex representative confirmed to Cointelegraph that investors would be refunded. However, Bitfinex will not act immediately and will wait for the debt issuer to make a new offer.
Bitfinex noted that the issuer of the project, Inversiones Laguardia S.A. de C.V., has not yet announced its next step. Currently, Bitfinex has removed the public offering from its website.
The funds raised were intended to finance the construction of an 80-room Hampton by Hilton hotel with a restaurant, workspaces, swimming pool, gym, and garden. Investors aimed to own a share of the hotel by investing at least $1,000 to purchase the “HILSV” token on the Bitcoin Layer 2 Liquid Network. In return, investors planned to receive a 10% coupon over a five-year period.
El Salvador’s Bitcoin Investment and Crypto Adoption Strategy
El Salvador, known for its Bitcoin investment and crypto adoption strategy, expanded into the real-world asset tokenization area by granting Bitfinex a digital asset service provider license in April 2023. When the Hilton hotel initiative was announced, Bitcoin commentator Stacy Herbert argued that Bitfinex’s expansion marked a new era of capital markets based on Bitcoin in El Salvador, providing the local population with a new way to access financial markets.
Although the Hilton hotel project appears to have failed for now, El Salvador has new plans. The government has been planning to establish investment banks that will offer financial services to Bitcoin investors with fewer restrictions.
