The International Monetary Fund confirmed on September 3, 2026 that El Salvador has not used government money to accumulate Bitcoin since the completion of the first review of its $1.4 billion loan program. The finding came as part of a staff-level agreement covering the combined second and third reviews of the country's 40-month Extended Fund Facility (EFF), and it resolves months of scrutiny triggered in November 2025, when El Salvador disclosed it had acquired approximately 1,090 BTC worth roughly $100 million at the time, raising compliance questions about whether the Bukele administration was quietly violating the terms of its deal struck in late 2024 and formally approved by the IMF Executive Board in February 2025.

According to IMF staff, El Salvador grew its sovereign Bitcoin holdings from roughly 5,968 BTC to 7,764 BTC between June 27, 2025 and the time of this review. The roughly 1,796 BTC added during that window was sourced entirely from private donations. Salvadoran authorities provided documentation to IMF reviewers, though the identities of the donors have not been disclosed publicly. The IMF said it does not expect further accumulation beyond those documented donations. "No public resources funded the documented accumulation," IMF staff stated, according to reporting by crypto.news.

A Sovereign Bitcoin Position That Is, On Paper, Working

Bitcoin is currently trading at approximately $81,264 per coin. At that price, El Salvador's 7,764 BTC is worth approximately $630.9 million. The country's average cost basis across all purchases sits near $67,290 per coin, putting the total acquisition cost at roughly $388.9 million and the unrealized gain at around $239.4 million. President Nayib Bukele has publicly highlighted the portfolio's performance: when Bitcoin reached a peak of $110,000 per coin at an earlier point, the country's unrealized profits exceeded $350 million, though Bitcoin has since retreated from that level.

El Salvador currently ranks fifth among sovereign holders of Bitcoin globally, behind China, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, and one other government not identified in publicly available data, according to the tracking aggregator bitcointreasuries.net.

Pending formal approval from the IMF Executive Board, El Salvador will receive a disbursement of approximately $140 million (SDR 101.96 million) under the combined review. The country has already drawn SDR 172.32 million from the facility since its February 2025 approval. To secure that approval, El Salvador amended its Bitcoin law in late January and February 2025, before the Executive Board vote: Bitcoin acceptance by private businesses was made voluntary rather than mandatory, government fees and taxes became payable only in U.S. dollars, and the government's Chivo wallet was placed on a path toward privatization. These legal changes were enacted as preconditions of board approval, not consequences of it.

Majority ownership and operational control of Chivo have since been transferred to a private operator, with the state retaining a minority stake and custodial responsibilities.

The IMF's statement also noted that understandings were reached on steps to modernize El Salvador's legal and regulatory framework for digital assets and to improve governance and risk management around the government's remaining crypto holdings. That language signals ongoing supervision rather than a clean bill of health.

El Salvador's arrangement also sits within a broader multilateral financing context. Beyond the IMF's $1.4 billion EFF, the country is engaged with a wider financing package of approximately $3.5 billion that includes the World Bank and other multilateral lenders, making continued IMF compliance particularly consequential.

A Template Other IMF-Dependent Nations Will Watch

The structural significance of this confirmation extends well beyond El Salvador. For governments in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa that depend on multilateral financing but face domestic pressure to engage with digital assets, El Salvador's arrangement sketches a potential compliance path: retain Bitcoin exposure through private-sector mechanisms rather than direct public purchases, and maintain clear accounting firewalls between sovereign crypto holdings and public budgets.

The contrast with Pakistan is instructive. In mid-2025, Pakistani officials announced a strategic Bitcoin reserve, but Finance Secretary Imdadullah Bosal contradicted the announcement within 48 hours before a National Assembly committee, clarifying that cryptocurrency remains domestically banned. Pakistan, which has cycled through successive IMF programs, has no funded BTC position and faces structural barriers that El Salvador never encountered, including a domestic ban on cryptocurrency that El Salvador never imposed.

Nigeria and Ghana, both closely watched in the regional crypto policy conversation, have similarly held back from sovereign accumulation. Nigeria operates Africa's largest cryptocurrency market by volume, making its restraint particularly notable. Ghana's situation is shaped less by retail crypto scale than by serial currency devaluations that have made monetary experimentation politically sensitive.

Bhutan offers a different counterpoint. The Himalayan kingdom had quietly built a Bitcoin position through hydropower-funded mining, but has reportedly sold approximately $1 billion in BTC over the past 18 months. Fiscal pressure appears to have driven that exit, in contrast to El Salvador's ideological commitment to holding through volatility.

El Salvador's ability to hold through IMF conditionality, while keeping its portfolio in profit, marks it as the outlier case rather than the norm.

One macro shift running parallel to all of this: the IMF updated its System of National Accounts in July 2025 to classify Bitcoin as a "non-produced nonfinancial asset." That reclassification does not endorse sovereign accumulation, but it does give central banks and finance ministries a cleaner accounting framework for holdings they may already have or may consider in the future.

What Comes Next

The unnamed private donors who contributed nearly 1,800 BTC to El Salvador's sovereign Bitcoin holdings remain an open question. On-chain data alone cannot confirm whether these were truly arms-length contributions or transfers arranged through informal government channels. That ambiguity will likely follow this story into the next IMF review cycle.

For the broader market, the more durable takeaway may be institutional: a multilateral lender has now formally accepted that a sovereign can carry a Bitcoin position funded outside the public budget, remain in good standing, and unlock continued financing. That acceptance, however narrow, is new ground.