El Salvador buys 1 bitcoin daily to advance cryptocurrency strategy

Since November 17, 2022, the government of El Salvador has purchased exactly one Bitcoin every single day.

The numbers behind the strategy

As of early August 2026, El Salvador holds approximately 7,734 BTC in its national reserve, worth around $500 million at current prices. The daily purchase program alone accounts for over 1,700 of those coins, with the rest accumulated through earlier bulk buys and opportunistic purchases during market dips.

The most notable of those bulk moves came in November 2025, when the government scooped up roughly 1,090 BTC in a single transaction during a price pullback.

A public reserve tracker, launched in May 2024, logs every individual 1 BTC transaction on-chain, giving anyone with an internet connection a real-time view of the country’s accumulation.

The National Bitcoin Office oversees the daily acquisitions.

How a $1.4 billion IMF deal changed the strategy without killing it

In late 2024, the country finalized a $1.4 billion agreement with the International Monetary Fund. Those conditions included significant concessions: Bitcoin lost its legal tender status in El Salvador, meaning businesses were no longer legally required to accept it as payment. The government also began winding down the Chivo wallet, the state-backed Bitcoin app that had been central to the original 2021 rollout.

What did not change was the daily buy. The purchase program survived intact, and the IMF deal did not require the country to sell its holdings.

El Salvador first made history in September 2021, becoming the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender.