The International Monetary Fund (IMF) review, released on July 15, claims that El Salvador stopped accumulating Bitcoin in February, following the signing of a contract with the IMF. The agreement required El Salvador to halt the accumulation of BTC in exchange for a $1.4 billion loan and stripped BTC of its fiat currency status. This information is materially inconsistent with claims by Salvadoran officials who regularly announced new BTC purchases by the state. Concerns over the accuracy of El Salvador’s Bitcoin Reserve date back to 2023.
summary
- El Salvador claims it continues to buy one BTC in February.
- According to the IMF, Salvador’s claim on the purchase of Bitcoin refers to the movement of Bitcoin between wallets controlled by the government rather than actual accumulation.
- The suspension of BTC accumulation has been confirmed by the Financial Minister of El Salvador and the president of the country’s central bank
- Several code enthusiasts have argued that the amount BTC El Salvador claims holds is misleading. The BBC and Crypto Sleuths pointed out a contradiction in 2023
- The creator of the website that President Bukele used to demonstrate the growth of the BTC reserve is called data, which is referred to as “incorrect” in the screenshot.
Revelation from IMF Review
Despite arranging a contract with the IMF, President Naive Bukere, El Salvador, continued to emphasize the new purchase of Bitcoin. The first EFF Arrangement Review released this July contains information that challenges these claims.
In a letter attached to the review’s appendix, Salvador Central Bank President Douglas Pablo Rodriguez Fuentes and Finance Minister Jerson Rogelio Posada Molina also mentions a minor bleach of the Bitcoin accumulation deal in March, whilst claiming that “the Bitcoin stock held by the public sector remains the same.”
In addition to that, there are small but essential details hidden in footnote 9, which reads, “The increase in Bitcoin holdings in strategic Bitcoin reserve funds reflects the integration of Bitcoin in various government-owned wallets.”
This means that El Salvador stopped buying Bitcoin in February 2025. This is in line with the IMF contract. The IMF review outlines positive trends in the El Salvador economy, and concludes that the IMF should soon have an SDR of 86.16 million to approximately $118 million. The overall satisfaction of the fund’s board of directors shows that El Salvador actually chose to opt for a USD loan from the IMF not only as a legal currency but also as a strategic preparation worth accumulating.
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BTC purchases in El Salvador after trading with the IMF
The contract with the IMF also called for El Salvador to not only revoke Bitcoin’s status as a legal currency, but also halt Bitcoin accumulation (according to the IMF, it presents economic risks). However, instead of following the rules imposed, the country continued to buy BTC daily.
In March, the IMF reminded Bukere that they should suspend Bitcoin purchases to meet the requirements outlined in the transaction. However, he blatantly refused the IMF’s request and said that Bitcoin accumulation would not cease.
“All this will stop in April.” “All this will stop in June.” “All this will stop in December.”
No, it’s not stopped.
When the world expels us and most “bitcoiners” abandon us, if it doesn’t stop, it won’t stop now, it won’t stop in the future.
Proof of work>Proof of whining https://t.co/9pc0poy3yq
– Female Bukee (@nitisbate) March 4, 2025
In an interview with Bloomberg in April, El Salvador’s economy minister Maria Luisa Hayem confirmed that Buquere has not stopped buying Bitcoin, calling Bitcoin a “significant project.”
Concerns raised by members of the crypto community and journalists
IMF reviews suggest that Salvador didn’t buy all the bitcoins he claims he bought. The lack of transparency regarding the alleged purchases in El Salvador was a concern raised multiple times by several code enthusiasts in the past.
2K BTC on other wallets means that you can stack every day for over 5 years and look like you’re buying. By then, much of the world will change around Bitcoin and maybe they will actually be able to buy them again.
This is a speculation, but that’s everything until we tell the truth…– Forest (@forresthodl) April 27, 2025
One crypto activist who independently and publicly scrutinizes everything related to Bitcoin, who uses Handle Preditor, raised concerns in November 2023, pointing to a contradiction in numbers related to El Salvador’s Bitcoin reserve.
Add all the purchases they listed together and it should come up at 2,758 BTC
But they list 3,134 btc pic.twitter.com/wkpciah7af
– Pledditor (@pledditor) November 29, 2023
A BBC article released in December 2023 suggests that the Salvador Bitcoin estimate does not support anything except for Bukkere’s tweets and screenshots from the website’s Knight Tracker, where creators at the time did not comment on the issue.
However, on July 20th, Knive Tracker creator Elias Zerk took X to express his surprise at the fact that President Bukkere was using the wrong data and that the media had not spoken about it.
As the creator of that third-party site, I am amazed that it wasn’t a big deal yet. He basically copied the wrong data and proudly expressed it as his data and truth. Zero Big News Outlet has given us a closer look at this or even more attention. The strangest anecdote I have
-Elias (@eliaszrq) July 20, 2025
Since then, X accounts posting announcements of BTC purchases have started using a different website. However, the questions continued. On July 20th, five days after IMF and El Salvadoran officials announced that the country had not purchased Bitcoin after signing the contract, the Bitcoin office announced a post about yet another BTC purchase by El Salvador.
Salvador bought Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/660qvlv3qe
– July 19, 2025, Bitcoin Office (@bitcoinofficesv)
Nayib Bukele or other senior officials had not responded to the news as of July 22nd.
read more: El Salvador ends Bitcoin as fiat currency – this is why it didn’t work
