IMF Says Donations Fueled El Salvador’s Bitcoin Boom

IMF Now Says Donations Funded El Salvador’s Bitcoin Growth

The International Monetary Fund said Thursday that the bitcoin added to El Salvador’s official holdings since mid-2025 came from private donations, not public spending, offering a new explanation for the steady rise in the country’s on-chain reserve tracker.

In a statement tied to a staff-level agreement on El Salvador’s combined second and third reviews under its IMF financing program, the fund said Salvadoran authorities provided documentation showing that bitcoin accumulation since the first review reflected private donations and that no public resources were used.

The IMF added that no further accumulation beyond the documented donations is expected.

The disclosure matters because it addresses a key tension in El Salvador’s IMF-backed policy commitments. The IMF’s first review called for the public sector’s bitcoin balance to remain unchanged, even as the government has continued to promote its bitcoin strategy and public-facing reserve totals have kept increasing.

According to El Salvador’s Bitcoin Office, the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve held 5,968 BTC when the program began in December 2024 and now stands at 7,764 BTC. President Nayib Bukele’s government has maintained that it buys one bitcoin per day, and it announced a 1,090 BTC purchase worth roughly $100 million last November.

The IMF’s account differs from one it gave a year ago. In September 2025, an IMF communications officer told Decrypt that the total quantity of government-owned bitcoin had not increased, and that growth reflected coins moving between wallets already controlled by the state.

El Salvador is set to receive approximately $140 million following the staff-level agreement, pending IMF board approval, as part of its broader $1.4 billion financing program.

• What changed: The IMF now says post–first review bitcoin additions were funded by private donations.
• Why it matters: It aligns reported reserve growth with IMF conditions that public-sector bitcoin holdings not expand using public funds.
• Context: The IMF previously said the reserve’s growth reflected wallet movements rather than net accumulation.