El Salvador’s Bitcoin stash sits at $618 million despite IMF strings
The country has held its Bitcoin on-chain since 2021, and an IMF review says recent additions came from private donations rather than public funds
El Salvador’s Bitcoin reserve is worth $618 million, and every coin remains visible on-chain. The country has held Bitcoin since 2021, despite the conditions attached to its loan program with the International Monetary Fund.
What the reserve looks like today
The reserve held between 7,760 and 7,792 BTC as of late September to early October 2026. The exact count depends on which snapshot you check.
The dollar value moves with the market. Depending on Bitcoin’s price, the reserve has been valued at approximately $598 million to $660 million.
The reserve has grown since the IMF program began. When the program started, El Salvador held approximately 5,968 to 6,070 BTC. Holdings have since climbed by more than 1,700 BTC.
Independent trackers such as BitcoinTreasuries.net confirm the government’s official figures. The National Bitcoin Office continues to report incremental additions to the reserve.
The IMF question
The IMF approved a $1.4 billion Extended Fund Facility for El Salvador in February 2025. An Extended Fund Facility is a longer-term loan program, typically paired with policy commitments the borrowing country agrees to meet.
Those commitments included limits on public-sector Bitcoin accumulation. In plain terms, the government was not supposed to keep spending state money on more coins.
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The IMF reviewed the program in October 2026 and found that Bitcoin added since June 2025 came from private donations, not government resources. With the additions classified as donations, the public-sector accumulation limits were waived for those coins.
The government also made changes to the Chivo wallet, the state-linked digital wallet launched alongside the Bitcoin push. Following its commitments to the IMF, control of Chivo shifted to a private operator, which now runs its operations separately from the government.
How El Salvador got here
El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as legal tender in September 2021. It was the first country to take that step. The country started accumulating Bitcoin around the same time it gave the asset official status.
The IMF has long been wary of the policy, and the 2025 loan program brought that tension into the open. The resulting arrangement was a compromise: limits on public spending on Bitcoin, a reshaped Chivo wallet, and continued scrutiny through periodic reviews.
Through all of it, Bukele’s administration has reiterated a long-term holding strategy. The government has signaled it plans to keep the coins, not trade them.
What this means
For the IMF, the October review sets a practical precedent. Program limits on public-sector accumulation apparently do not cover Bitcoin that arrives through private donations, at least in this case.
The donation route raises its own questions worth watching. Who is donating, how much, and under what terms will shape how credible the arrangement looks in future IMF reviews. If the source of new coins ever shifted back toward state funds, the accumulation limits would come back into play.
The gap between the low and high valuations, approximately $598 million versus $660 million, shows how quickly a national reserve built on Bitcoin can rise or fall on paper.