Why the IMF is preventing El Salvador from making money on Bitcoin
On May 27, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced that it would continue to work to ensure that the number of bitcoins in all government wallets in El Salvador remains unchanged. This position contradicts President Nayib Bukele’s continued support for increasing the number of bitcoins in the country, writes RBC Crypto.
In March 2025, it was reported that the IMF had approved a $1.4 billion credit line for El Salvador, and other official creditors had pledged to provide additional financial support totaling approximately $3.5 billion. As part of this agreement, the country made a number of commitments, including abstaining from voluntary accumulation of cryptocurrency, including the purchase and mining of bitcoins to reduce “bitcoin risks.”
“With regard to Bitcoin, we will continue our efforts to ensure that the total amount of Bitcoin in all government wallets remains unchanged in line with program commitments,” the IMF said in a statement on May 27.
The IMF statement comes as the first review of the El Salvador financing agreement found “successful implementation of the first phase of the program” and resulted in the parties reaching “staff-level agreement.” If the document is approved by the IMF's executive board, El Salvador will receive almost $120 million.
Nevertheless, the authorities continue to buy approximately one bitcoin per day. The National Bitcoin Office of El Salvador (ONBTC) under President Nayib Bukele regularly publishes information on cryptocurrency purchases on the social network X. Thus, according to the latest message from ONBTC, on May 28, El Salvador had 6,190 BTC (about $673 million) on its balance. Since April 28, the wallet has been replenished by 30 coins.
The contradiction is explained by the fact that the Salvadoran government has suspended direct purchases of bitcoin, and the bitcoin office operates outside the country's financial sector, a legal distinction that allows it to continue making small daily purchases without violating IMF requirements, Decrypt writes.
Back in April, the IMF's Western Hemisphere Director Rodrigo Valdez confirmed that El Salvador was in compliance with its commitment to not accumulate bitcoins in the financial sector as a whole, which serves as a performance criterion.
However, Bukele openly reiterates that El Salvador will continue to accumulate bitcoins despite the terms of the loan agreement:
“It will stop in April. It will stop in June. It will stop in December. No, it will not stop. If it did not stop when the world turned its back on us and most of the ‘bitcoiners’ abandoned us, it will not stop now and it will not stop in the future,” Bukele wrote in early March in H. Since then, El Salvador’s bitcoin office has acquired about 90 bitcoins ($9.6 million).
Источник: cryptocurrency.tech
