Bitcoiner Dennis Porter tweeted that El Salvador had raised $500 million for their Bitcoin bond program. The $500 million raised is in the form of verbal commitments and doesn’t constitute final pledges according to Blockstream’s Chief Strategy Officer, Samson Mow.

What’s more, the money raised so far is less than the $1 billion figure proposed when plans were first announced in November 2021. However, details of the timeline are not known at this point, only that issuance will take place in 2022.

Entities like the Fitch credit agency in the U.S. remains doubtful about whether the program will succeed. With uncertainty around the Bitcoin bond as a polished product, Fitch said it has reservations about whether El Salvador can raise the entire valuation.

This was a factor in the firm’s decision to downgrade El Salvador’s credit rating to CCC earlier this month, indicating a substantial credit risk.

“CCC National Ratings denote a very high level of default risk relative to other issuers or obligations in the same country or monetary union.” Chiming in, an unnamed financial executive paid a backhanded compliment, saying the volcano bond, while lacking fundamentals, still has novelty appeal as a “meme” bond.

Mow dismissed such talk, saying El Salvador would have no problem raising the money. El Salvador is even thinking about raising as much as $5 billion more in bitcoin-backed bonds in the future, the Journal reported. 

El Salvador has been pushing into crypto, a movement driven in part by the country’s millennial President, Nayib Bukele, who has become known for trading bitcoin with government funds on his phone.