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El Salvador used no public funds for Bitcoin purchases since mid-2025, the International Monetary Fund said — a staff-level disclosure that resolves the running mystery of the country's apparently growing Bitcoin reserve and moves the government a step closer to another $140 million in program funding.
In a Sept. 3 statement announcing a staff-level agreement on the combined second and third reviews of the country's Extended Fund Facility, the IMF said Salvadoran authorities provided documentation verifying that Bitcoin accumulated after June 27, 2025 came from private donations, with no public money financing the additions. The Fund also reached an understanding that no further Bitcoin accumulation beyond the documented donations is expected. The announcement identified neither the donors nor the amount of Bitcoin received privately.
El Salvador's Bitcoin records address the wallet questions
The disclosure closes an awkward chapter of ambiguity. Wallets associated with El Salvador's Strategic Bitcoin Reserve had shown apparent increases since the IMF program began, raising questions about whether the government was still buying despite its commitments — blockchain records can show assets entering a wallet but cannot distinguish purchases from internal transfers or donations. The documentation now introduces private donations as the verified source of post-June accumulation. Earlier IMF reviews had already noted that some reported increases reflected Bitcoin consolidation among different state-controlled addresses, and daily purchase claims had repeatedly conflicted with program disclosures, a tension that made documentation inevitable.
The money at stake is concrete. The 40-month, $1.4 billion EFF was approved in February 2025, and El Salvador has received SDR 172.32 million so far. Subject to IMF Executive Board approval and completion of prior actions, the latest agreement unlocks roughly $140 million (SDR 101.96 million). The IMF described El Salvador's economy as exceeding expectations, projecting 4.5% real GDP growth in 2026 on investment, consumption, remittances, tourism and capital inflows, while calling for continued fiscal consolidation, stronger governance and public debt reduction toward 80% of GDP by 2030. The IMF announced the agreement on X (Twitter), noting the disbursement remains subject to Board approval.
Chivo goes private, and what it means
The statement also confirmed a structural retreat from the government's direct crypto role: Chivo, the state-issued wallet launched alongside El Salvador's Bitcoin Law, has seen majority ownership and operational control transferred to an unidentified private operator, with the government retaining a minority stake and custodial responsibilities for customer assets. Authorities are also working to improve transparency around Bitcoin held across different wallets and to strengthen governance and risk controls for public-sector crypto assets under a planned legal and regulatory overhaul. Under the original EFF conditions, El Salvador had already made private-sector Bitcoin acceptance voluntary, required taxes to be paid in U.S. dollars and limited public-sector participation in Bitcoin activities.
The image is striking: the first nation to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender is still accumulating it — through donations rather than treasury purchases — while privatizing the consumer infrastructure that carried the policy. Regulators worldwide are settling their crypto postures, and sovereign Bitcoin exposure remains hostage to market swings — El Salvador's compromise shows a middle path: hold the coins, drop the politics, keep the IMF happy. Whether the model preserves any of the original vision or simply manages its decline is now a question of donation flow; the policy that once announced a nation's independence from financial convention now advances quietly, in private transfers the government did not pay for.