The Worldwide Financial Fund has drawn a pointy line below the newest bout of hypothesis over El Salvador’s Bitcoin technique, telling reporters that the Central American nation has not added to its sovereign stash. Obvious will increase within the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Fund (SBRF), the IMF stated, merely mirror “actions throughout numerous government-owned wallets” and depart the nation’s total place unchanged.
Is El Salvador Simply Shuffling Bitcoin Wallets?
IMF Communications Director Julie Kozack delivered the clarification throughout a daily press briefing on Thursday, responding to a query from Internal Metropolis Press reporter Matthew Lee. “As now we have said up to now, the overall quantity of BTC held throughout government-owned wallets stays unchanged, and that’s in step with El Salvador’s program commitments,” Kozack stated, including that any headline development within the SBRF “relate[s] to actions throughout numerous government-owned wallets.”
The reassurance comes lower than a month after the IMF Government Board accomplished El Salvador’s 2025 Article IV session and first assessment of its 40-month Prolonged Fund Facility (EFF). That assessment unlocked a $118 million tranche, bringing whole disbursements below the $1.4 billion association to roughly $231 million. The EFF requires the Bukele administration to maintain its internet BTC publicity flat whereas it places public funds on what the IMF calls “a agency downward debt path.”
Solely hours earlier than the IMF’s remarks, El Salvador’s official Bitcoin Workplace proclaimed on X: “EL SALVADOR JUST BOUGHT MORE BITCOIN,” attaching a screenshot that confirmed an 8 BTC buy and a working whole of 6,248.18 BTC—price about $722 million at right this moment’s spot worth of roughly $116,000. The publish echoed President Nayib Bukele’s long-standing mantra that the nation buys “one Bitcoin a day,” a slogan he has repeated since November 2024.
But the IMF insists these numbers are an accounting mirage. Whereas the SBRF’s pockets tackle can present incremental inflows, an equal quantity is often debited from different state-controlled wallets—most notably a treasury cold-storage tackle utilized by the fiscal company BANDESAL—leaving the republic’s consolidated place unchanged. “Dangers from Bitcoin proceed to be mitigated,” Kozack emphasised, praising “strong” total programme efficiency, together with fiscal and reserve targets “met with margins.”
Below the EFF’s technical memorandum of understanding, El Salvador should cap internet crypto purchases by the non-financial public sector on the degree in place when this system was permitted final February. The target is to forestall additional volatility on a public steadiness sheet that already carries Bitcoin publicity equal to about 2 p.c of GDP. Reuters reported in March that the IMF had already warned San Salvador towards “including to authorities cryptocurrency publicity,” whilst officers trumpeted periodic buys.
As of press time, neither President Bukele nor his Bitcoin adviser Max Keiser had responded publicly to the IMF’s assertion. The Bitcoin Workplace account, in the meantime, has not deleted or amended its unique publish.
At press time, BTC traded at $
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