Despite IMF Prohibition, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele Vows to Continue Bitcoin Purchases

A clause in El Salvador's recently completed financing deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) prohibited the country from accumulating any additional Bitcoin.

A clause in El Salvador’s recently completed financing deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) prohibited the country from accumulating any additional Bitcoin.

However, President Nayib Bukele has stressed that El Salvador has no intention of stopping its BTC purchases no matter what the IMF demands.

Bitcoin Strategy “Won’t Stop”

The International Monetary Fund has added new conditions to the 40-month, $1.4 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF) for El Salvador. When it was initially approved in December, it already included strict restrictions on government Bitcoin activities, while allowing retention of existing holdings.

The agreement, detailed in a March 2025 IMF Country report published Monday, requests that El Salvador stop mining Bitcoin and prohibits new BTC acquisitions by public sector entities.

El Salvador’s president has publicly refuted these terms, emphasizing that the country will not stop stacking the flagship crypto.

‘“This all stops in April.’ ‘This all stops in June.’ ‘This all stops in December.’ No, it’s not stopping,” Bukele wrote on X on Tuesday.

If it didn’t stop when the world ostracized us and most 'bitcoiners' abandoned us, it won’t stop now, and it won’t stop in the future. Proof of work > proof of whining.

Bukele’s defiance coincided with El Salvador adding another 5 BTC to its holdings on March 4 as part of the Central American nation’s treasury strategy, pushing its total to 6,101 BTC, valued at around $530 million at Bitcoin’s current price of around $87,134.

The country has the sixth-biggest Bitcoin stockpile of any nation-state, trailing only the US, China, the UK, Ukraine and Bhutan, data shows. El Salvador started buying Bitcoin in September 2021 after becoming the first country in the world to make Bitcoin legal tender.

Bitcoin’s legal tender status was narrowed in January when El Salvador quickly passed a bill to make BTC acceptance voluntary for private sector merchants.

While Bukele previously faced heavy criticism for his ambitious Bitcoin experiment, the millennial president has received support from prominent Bitcoin stakeholders, including Strategy co-founder and executive chairman Michael Saylor.

“Bitcoin adoption is unstoppable,” Saylor said on X in response to Bukele’s Tuesday post.