El Salvador Continues Daily Bitcoin Purchases Despite IMF Agreement
El Salvador has continued its daily Bitcoin purchases, adding 240 BTC since December despite a $1.4 billion IMF agreement that discourages public-sector accumulation.
El Salvador has purchased 240 Bitcoin (BTC) since Dec. 19 last year, despite a $1.4 billion loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund that discouraged further accumulation. El Salvador’s treasury wallet now holds 6,209 BTC. The daily purchases — initiated by President Nayib Bukele in 2022 — have continued at a pace of one BTC per day.
Government officials have recently confirmed these acquisitions, with Economy Minister Maria Luisa Hayem stating in a Bloomberg interview that asset accumulation remains a key strategic priority:
“There’s a commitment of President Bukele to keep accumulating assets as a way to do precisely that. Bitcoin keeps being an important project. There is an asset accumulation that we’re seeing from the government perspective, from the private sector perspective.”
The IMF’s December 2024 agreement with El Salvador required the country to end Bitcoin’s status as legal tender and refrain from further public-sector Bitcoin accumulation in exchange for the $1.4 billion loan.
However, the IMF has since acknowledged that the country remains in technical compliance with the deal despite continuing to accumulate BTC. Rodrigo Valdes, head of the IMF’s Western Hemisphere Department, said that the agreement only applies to the formal fiscal sector.
This suggests that the government is executing the purchases through structures that fall outside the central fiscal sector, maintaining technical compliance with the IMF deal.