IMF Says El Salvador Made No New Voluntary Bitcoin Purchases Under Program
An IMF review and subsequent briefing said El Salvador had not made new voluntary Bitcoin purchases after entering its IMF-supported program, despite public reserve figures that appeared to keep rising. The clarification changed how observers interpreted the country's reported Bitcoin accumulation.
In July 2025, the International Monetary Fund clarified an important question about El Salvador's continuing Bitcoin reserve growth. Its first review under the country's Extended Fund Facility stated that the government had complied with commitments limiting public-sector Bitcoin activity, and an IMF press briefing on July 24 said there had been no voluntary accumulation of bitcoin by the public sector since the program was approved.
That statement mattered because public-facing reserve trackers and government messaging had continued to show the country's Bitcoin holdings increasing. The IMF explained that apparent increases were attributable to transfers involving government-owned wallets rather than new voluntary purchases by the public sector. In other words, the visible movement of coins into reserve addresses did not necessarily mean the government was continuing the daily buying policy in the same way outside observers had assumed.
El Salvador had become one of the most closely watched sovereign Bitcoin experiments after making Bitcoin legal tender in 2021. By 2025, its agreement with the IMF had introduced new constraints and ambiguity around the government's Bitcoin policy. The July clarification is historically important because it separates public reserve presentation from underlying acquisition activity and marks a stage in which El Salvador's Bitcoin strategy was being reshaped by the conditions of an international lending program.