The International Monetary Fund has approved an immediate disbursement of 101.96 million Special Drawing Rights, or about $137.93 million, to El Salvador after completing the second and third reviews of the country’s Extended Fund Facility. The 40-month program, approved in February 2025, is worth about $1.4 billion overall.
The Oct. 1 decision came with a waiver after El Salvador breached a continuous performance condition that barred the public sector from voluntarily accumulating Bitcoin. The IMF said the country received the waiver because of corrective actions and renewed commitments, while also tightening expectations around any future increase in public-sector Bitcoin holdings.
Why the waiver was granted
Under the original IMF program, voluntary public-sector Bitcoin accumulation was supposed to remain at zero. The program documents excluded law-enforcement seizures from that definition, but purchases and mining were covered.
El Salvador said the additional Bitcoin did not come from public money but from private donations. IMF staff had already stated on Sept. 3 that no government funds were used, and the board’s October decision accepted that explanation for the purpose of the waiver.
At the same time, the IMF did not treat the episode as a broad endorsement of sovereign Bitcoin accumulation. The board said no further accumulation is envisaged beyond documented donations, and it asked for more disclosure on Bitcoin assets held by the public sector.
Reserve growth and the transparency issue
When the EFF was approved in February 2025, El Salvador’s Bitcoin reserve stood at roughly 5,968 to 6,070 BTC. By the end of September 2026, that total had risen to around 7,760 to 7,792 BTC, an increase of more than 1,700 BTC.
Using the range cited in the source report, the reserve’s value is currently estimated at about $598 million to $660 million, depending on the snapshot used. The IMF, however, has highlighted a transparency gap around the classification of those inflows as donations.
The unresolved question is not only whether state funds were used, but how future donations to a sovereign Bitcoin reserve would be identified and verified. The IMF said it will scrutinize the source of any new coins, though the source article said the verification process has not been spelled out publicly.
The larger shift is away from state crypto infrastructure
The waiver has drawn the most attention, but the source article argues that the bigger policy change is El Salvador’s retreat from direct state involvement in crypto infrastructure. Chivo, the government wallet launched after Bitcoin became legal tender in 2021, has been pushed toward privatization.
According to the IMF, a private operator now runs Chivo, while the government retains only a minority interest and responsibility for safeguarding client assets. IMF First Deputy Managing Director Dan Katz said residual public-sector exposure should be fully unwound.
The article also said the government has ruled out developing or operating a stablecoin wallet, separating public-sector activity from private-sector digital asset services. That marks a clear shift from the earlier vision of Chivo as the main domestic platform for Bitcoin use.
Strong macro data helped offset the breach
The IMF’s flexibility appears tied in part to El Salvador’s broader economic performance. Real GDP growth accelerated to 3.9% in 2025 from 2.6% a year earlier. Fitch Ratings expects growth to slow to 3% in 2026, while the Central Reserve Bank sees growth in a 3% to 3.5% range, still above the country’s long-run average of 2.5%.
Fiscal consolidation also improved. The non-financial public sector posted a primary surplus of $706 million, or 1.9% of GDP, in 2025, compared with 0% in 2024. The overall NFPS deficit narrowed to 2.9% of GDP from 4.6% the year before, according to the source material.
Debt levels nevertheless remain high. The IMF projects general government gross debt above the median for similarly rated 'B' countries at 84.5% of GDP by 2026, while Fitch expects debt to ease only gradually. Interest costs are also elevated, and the source article noted that pension-related pressures remain unresolved.
What comes next
The IMF’s decision resolves an immediate program issue but leaves several open questions. It does not create a clear precedent for governments to build Bitcoin reserves freely, and future accumulation appears tied to the ability to document private donations and provide fuller disclosure.
The next confirmed step is continued monitoring under the IMF program, including scrutiny of any additional Bitcoin entering public-sector wallets. Beyond crypto, the source article said pending pension and civil service reforms, election-cycle politics, and possible pressure from higher energy costs could make future compliance with IMF targets more difficult.
Source: www.blockhead.co