El Salvador’s public claim of buying one Bitcoin each day faces growing skepticism from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as the country’s strategic Bitcoin reserve grows despite a strict prohibition on new purchases. Data from BitcoinTreasuries shows holdings of 7,696 BTC (worth about $460 million as of June 28, 2026), up from 5,968 BTC when the IMF’s Extended Fund Facility program began in December 2024. That climb directly contradicts the IMF’s continuous quantitative performance criterion, which sets a zero ceiling on voluntary public-sector Bitcoin accumulation.
The IMF program, approved in February 2025 and backed by a $1.4 billion facility, also demands that El Salvador remove Bitcoin’s compulsory legal-tender status and stop issuing BTC-denominated debt. Spokesperson Julie Kozack explained in July 2025 that the apparent increase reflects consolidation of BTC across various government-owned wallets—particularly from a BANDESAL cold-storage address—rather than new market purchases. Under international public-sector accounting, total government-controlled Bitcoin is considered consolidated, so a rising balance in a single public tracker does not automatically signal a breach.
President Nayib Bukele’s government continues to broadcast the one-BTC-a-day strategy and maintains that all holdings are intact, even as Bitcoin’s price dropped roughly 19% over the last 30 days to the $59,000–$60,000 range. The drawdown heightens fiscal optics: the reserve’s peak valuation approached $800 million earlier in 2026, but now sits at a significant unrealized loss. US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $5.94 billion in outflows during the same period, highlighting how quickly institutional demand can reverse, while El Salvador’s sovereign reserve has no equivalent exit mechanism.
The tension comes at a sensitive moment. The IMF has set deadlines for El Salvador to report all public-sector hot and cold wallets, exit the Chivo wallet project, liquidate the Fidebitcoin trust, and publish audited financial reports of Bitcoin-linked entities. The next IMF review will be critical: if the public tracker, government statements, and the IMF’s wallet-consolidation explanation cannot be reconciled, disbursements from the $1.4 billion facility could be at risk, turning a marketing narrative into an unresolved accounting dispute with the country’s main external lender.
