El Salvador will continue buying bitcoins, after agreement with the IMF

El Salvador will continue buying bitcoins, possibly at an accelerated pace, and will keep the cryptocurrency as legal tender, the director of the country’s bitcoin office said Thursday, a day after Nayib Bukele’s government made a millionaire financing agreement with the IMFwhich asked him to limit his exposure to cryptocurrency.

On Wednesday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced that it had reached a long-awaited $1.4 billion deal to support the Bukele government’s reform agenda. However, the credit is subject to approval by the IMF executive board.

“Bitcoin remains legal tender,” said Stacy Herbert, director of the Bitcoin office of the presidency of El Salvador on his X account.

“El Salvador will continue to purchase bitcoins (possibly at an accelerated rate) for its Strategic Bitcoin Reserve,” he added.

El Salvador, which in 2021 became the first country in the world to make bitcoin official as legal tender – on par with the US dollar – has accumulated 5,968 bitcoins, with a current value of about $598 million.

Among the conditions requested by the Fund are legal reforms so that the acceptance of bitcoin is voluntary by private parties, unlike what the norm stipulates today. And delimit the participation of the public sector in economic activities related to cryptocurrency, which in recent days has exceeded $100,000.

However, Herbert made no reference to that request.

The IMF also asked El Salvador that taxes only be paid in dollars – the other legal tender in the country – and that the government’s participation in the official Chivo wallet will be gradually reduced.

Herbert announced that Chivo “will be sold or discontinued, but the many private sector bitcoin wallets will continue to serve El Salvador.”

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