El Salvador Buys 21 Bitcoin on the Fourth Anniversary of Its Bitcoin Law
El Salvador marked the fourth anniversary of its Bitcoin Law with a symbolic 21 BTC purchase announced by President Nayib Bukele. The purchase carried added significance because it followed 2025 legal and IMF-related changes that had reduced Bitcoin's mandatory role in the country.
On September 7, 2025, President Nayib Bukele announced that El Salvador had bought 21 BTC to mark the fourth anniversary of the country's Bitcoin Law. The number was deliberately symbolic, referencing Bitcoin's 21 million maximum supply. Contemporary reporting placed the country's reported holdings at roughly 6,313 BTC after the purchase.
The transaction would ordinarily have looked like another routine government Bitcoin purchase. Its significance came from the timing. Earlier in 2025, El Salvador had altered parts of its Bitcoin framework in connection with an agreement with the International Monetary Fund, including changes that reduced the legal obligation for private businesses to accept Bitcoin. Government officials had also provided the IMF with statements about public-sector Bitcoin acquisition that sat uneasily beside the National Bitcoin Office's continuing accumulation.
The 21-BTC anniversary purchase functioned as a deliberate political and symbolic reaffirmation that the Bukele government still wanted Bitcoin associated with the Salvadoran state even after the legal regime had been softened. It did not mean that the original 2021 legal-tender system remained unchanged.