The IMF confirmed El Salvador used no public funds to acquire Bitcoin since June 27, 2025. Every coin added to the sovereign wallet since that date came from private donations, not taxpayer m
The International Monetary Fund has confirmed that El Salvador did not draw on public funds to expand its sovereign Bitcoin holdings after June 27, 2025, resolving a dispute that had shadowed the country’s Extended Fund Facility program for more than a year. The finding, disclosed as part of a staff-level review published in early September 2026, credits the growth of the national wallet to private donations and internal wallet consolidation rather than new state purchases. As a direct result, the IMF has released a $140 million tranche to support El Salvador’s broader fiscal reform agenda. As of September 4, 2026, El Salvador’s sovereign wallet holds 7,264 BTC valued at $578.9 million, according to data from their wallet, according to data from their wallet, tracked by Arkham Intelligence.
President Nayib Bukele’s administration spent much of 2025 publicizing a “buy the dip” strategy, with officials claiming the state was adding roughly 1 BTC per day regardless of price movement. Compliance reports submitted to the IMF told a different story: the public sector ledger had stopped growing. The gap between the two accounts widened dramatically in November 2025, when El Salvador announced a single purchase of 1,090 BTC worth close to $100 million, a figure that appeared to directly contradict the IMF’s own monitoring.
The Fund’s September 2026 review closes that gap. Salvadoran authorities supplied audit documentation showing that every Bitcoin added to the sovereign wallet since the June 2025 cutoff originated from private donors rather than the treasury. Separately, some of the reported growth reflected the consolidation of coins already held across multiple state-linked addresses into a single wallet, which inflated the appearance of new accumulation without any fresh spending. El Salvador also transferred majority control of its Chivo e-wallet platform to a private operator, keeping only a minority custodial stake and further distancing state finances from Bitcoin market exposure.
The blended entry price of roughly $67,290 leaves the position comfortably profitable at current market levels, though the paper gains remain unrealized and would shrink or reverse in a sustained downturn.
El Salvador has committed to halting all further voluntary public-sector Bitcoin accumulation, a category that explicitly covers both direct purchases and any state-backed mining activity. That concession sits at the center of the $1.4 billion Extended Fund Facility and was the price of keeping the program on track. In exchange, the government secured the $140 million disbursement, along with the IMF’s public acknowledgment that a sovereign state can hold crypto on its balance sheet while still qualifying for conventional multilateral lending, provided firewalls keep public treasuries out of the market.
The IMF also credits improving domestic security, a rebound in tourism, and tighter fiscal discipline for a projected 4.5% real GDP growth rate in 2026, a figure well above the country’s historical trend.
Even as the sovereign portfolio posts strong paper returns, Bitcoin’s footing inside El Salvador’s own economy has weakened under IMF pressure. Mandatory merchant acceptance, once a hallmark of the 2021 legal tender law, has been rolled back to a purely voluntary framework. Tax obligations must still be settled in US dollars. The contrast is notable: the state’s Bitcoin treasury has never been more transparent or more profitable on paper, while Bitcoin’s role in everyday commerce has been quietly scaled back to accommodate the terms of a conventional IMF program.
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