IMF frees $138 million for El Salvador, state to stop buying Bitcoin

El Salvador received about $138 million from the International Monetary Fund on 1 October 2026 after the Fund waived the country's breach of a Bitcoin accumulation limit. The money came with a condition: the state will buy no more Bitcoin.

The Fund's Executive Board signed off on the combined second and third reviews of El Salvador's $1.4 billion Extended Fund Facility, according to a press release dated 1 October. The payment came to SDR 101.96 million, the Fund's internal accounting unit, worth roughly $138 million. That lifted total disbursements under the 40-month program to about $369 million.

An Extended Fund Facility is a multi-year IMF loan paid in stages. Each stage is tied to policy targets a government must hit. Miss one, and the money can stall.

What the IMF waived

Program rules cap how much Bitcoin the government can add to its reserve. El Salvador crossed the line. Rather than block the payout, the board granted a waiver, pointing to what it called strong corrective measures and renewed commitments. In the Fund's own words, "No further Bitcoin accumulation is envisaged beyond the documented donations."

Bitcoin has overshadowed the rest of the program. The Fund said fiscal consolidation has advanced and that liquidity and reserve buffers have strengthened, with reforms continuing on governance and transparency. For a small economy that leaned on costly borrowing for years, the cheap IMF money and the seal of approval matter more than any single coin.

That marks a long retreat. El Salvador made Bitcoin legal tender in September 2021, the first country to do so. To land the IMF deal in early 2025, it amended the law and ended the rule that businesses had to accept Bitcoin. The reserve stayed. The buying stops here.

The Chivo wallet changes hands

One corrective measure stands out. Majority ownership and operational control of Chivo, the state-backed Bitcoin wallet, moved to a private operator. The government kept a minority stake and the job of safeguarding customer assets, according to the Fund and reporting by crypto.news.

Dan Katz, the IMF's First Deputy Managing Director, chaired the board discussion. He described the state's role in Bitcoin as being unwound while related rules are tightened. Chivo launched in 2021 as the government's official Bitcoin payment app, built to move money cheaply for a country where remittances from abroad fund a large share of household spending. Handing it to a private operator pulls the state one more step away from the project it once led.

The reserve still stands, and so does the dispute

None of the Bitcoin has been sold. El Salvador's public tracker listed about 7,792 BTC in the reserve on 2 October 2026. Bitcoin traded near $84,644 at 02:35 UTC on 3 October 2026, according to CoinGecko, which values the holding at roughly $660 million. The price held after a third straight monthly gain in September.

Here is what the headline numbers hide. Through 2025 the Fund and El Salvador's government did not agree on whether the country was still buying. President Nayib Bukele's team posted regular additions to the reserve. Julie Kozack, the IMF's Director of Communications, said at the time that the movements reflected transfers between wallets the government already controlled, not fresh purchases. The waiver suggests both sides have now settled on a shared account of what happened.

What the Fund has not published is a figure for how much Bitcoin El Salvador added beyond the limit. The contrast with corporate buyers is sharp. While El Salvador freezes its stack, firms such as Strategy keep adding, with the company having bought 1,665 bitcoin in late September to push its holdings past 847,000 BTC.

What to watch

The next test is compliance. The 40-month program began in February 2025, which puts it on course to run into 2028, with more reviews and more payments to come. Each one checks the same thing: whether the state has stayed out of the Bitcoin market. The IMF projects El Salvador's economy to grow 4.5 percent in 2026, which gives Bukele room to say the deal is working. Whether the reserve stays untouched is the number watchers will track.