El Salvador Added 1,540 Bitcoin Without Public Funds, IMF Discloses
An IMF review finding that no government money financed El Salvador's continued Bitcoin accumulation raises questions about the transparency of the country's one-Bitcoin-per-day policy and its...
El Salvador added 1,540 Bitcoin to its national holdings since the IMF's first program review, but a new IMF disclosure states that no public resources were used to finance those purchases, according to CryptoSlate. The finding creates a documented gap between the Bukele administration's publicly stated accumulation strategy and the funding source of that accumulation.
El Salvador's government has promoted a policy of acquiring one Bitcoin per day since 2022, a figure the administration has cited in official communications. If 1,540 Bitcoin were added at a rate of one per day, that accumulation would represent approximately four years and two months of purchases. The IMF disclosure does not specify the period over which those coins were added.
The IMF's statement that no public resources funded the accumulation leaves the actual funding source unidentified. What would clarify this gap is a formal government accounting of the entity or account that financed the purchases, which as of the publication of this article has not been publicly released by the Salvadoran government.
El Salvador made Bitcoin legal tender in September 2021 under the Bitcoin Law, becoming the first country in the world to do so. That move drew global attention and required the IMF, World Bank, and other multilateral institutions to engage directly with the policy. The IMF initially expressed concern about financial stability and fiscal transparency risks associated with the Bitcoin Law.
In December 2024, El Salvador reached a $1.4 billion Extended Fund Facility agreement with the IMF. Under that agreement, El Salvador committed to making Bitcoin acceptance voluntary rather than mandatory for merchants, and agreed to limit new public sector Bitcoin accumulation. The IMF's disclosure that 1,540 coins were added without public funds appears in the context of that ongoing program review.
The distinction between public and non-public funding matters for the IMF agreement's compliance terms. If Bitcoin was acquired through a state-linked entity rather than the central government's direct budget, the classification of those purchases as outside public resources may be technically accurate while still raising transparency concerns that the IMF review process is designed to address.
For US investors, the story carries indirect relevance. Bitcoin traded below $80,000 on September 4 and 5, 2026, a level that has become a closely watched threshold following the coin's earlier rally. Sovereign accumulation narratives, including El Salvador's publicized buying program, have been cited by market participants as a demand signal. A disclosure that the accumulation was not government-funded removes one layer of that narrative.
El Salvador's national Bitcoin wallet, known as the Chivo Wallet, was established alongside the Bitcoin Law to facilitate citizen transactions. The government has separately maintained a Bitcoin trust. Whether either entity was the vehicle for the 1,540 Bitcoin purchases is not stated in available public disclosures.
The IMF conducts periodic reviews of member countries under active lending programs. These reviews produce public documents that assess fiscal compliance and policy implementation. The disclosure about El Salvador's Bitcoin accumulation emerged from one such review document, which is a public record under standard IMF transparency policy.
As of the date of this article, the Salvadoran government had not issued a public statement responding to the IMF's characterization of the funding source. The next scheduled IMF review of El Salvador's program has not been publicly confirmed with a specific date.