IMF reports transfer of majority ownership and control of Chivo
An IMF review disclosed that El Salvador's state-backed Bitcoin wallet had passed into majority private ownership and control.
The International Monetary Fund's October 1, 2026, review of its lending program for El Salvador reported that majority ownership and control of Chivo had been transferred to a private operator. The disclosure concerned a completed ownership change; it did not establish October 1 as the transaction's closing date.
Chivo had embodied the Salvadoran government's direct involvement in consumer Bitcoin infrastructure. A publicly backed wallet connected the legal and political decision to adopt Bitcoin with an everyday service through which people could access it. Moving majority ownership and control into private hands changed the state's role in that arrangement.
The development belonged to the continuing relationship between El Salvador's Bitcoin policies and its IMF commitments. It concerned control of a wallet business, rather than a transfer of control over the Bitcoin network. Nor did the ownership disclosure by itself establish changes to every user balance, withdrawal arrangement or government bitcoin holding.
The IMF review made the institutional transition public and placed it within the assessment of the country's economic program. That distinction matters: withdrawal from operating a state-backed service is a different historical action from changing Bitcoin's legal status or disposing of sovereign reserves.