Nayib Bukele

Bukele’s role in this story is political: he can advocate changes to domestic rules. For example, on 1 March 2024, El Salvador’s electoral authority, TSE, documented the delivery of credentials to president-elect Nayib Bukele. But state authority does not extend over all of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a network whose participants verify shared rules. A president can seek to change how his country treats bitcoin; he cannot simply order the worldwide network to change its own rules. [1]

The turning point came in September 2021, when El Salvador introduced Bitcoin as legal tender alongside the US dollar. This went beyond allowing individuals to buy bitcoin: the state gave it a special legal position and supported the launch of the Chivo wallet. Report 25/58 by the International Monetary Fund, or IMF, also describes the project as an effort to improve access to financial services and transfers from abroad. The original rules involved mandatory acceptance. Later changes mean that the launch alone no longer explains the situation today. [2]

Imagine a customer wanting to pay in bitcoin at a shop. Whether the merchant can refuse depends on applicable rules, not an old headline about Bitcoin’s introduction. In February 2025, the IMF described reforms making private-sector acceptance voluntary and requiring taxes to be paid only in US dollars, USD. Being able to offer a bitcoin payment is therefore different from an obligation to accept it. Nor can the original law establish that bitcoin remains an option for paying taxes. [3]

Chivo is a wallet and payment service, not the Bitcoin network itself. According to the IMF’s statement of 3 September 2026, majority ownership and operational control passed to a private operator. The government retained a minority stake and custody responsibilities for customer assets, meaning customers’ funds. For a user, these are separate questions: who operates the app, and who has obligations concerning their money? Private management does not mean that the state left the service entirely. [4]

When reported bitcoin holdings increase, it can look as though the state has bought more. The origin of the increase still needs evidence. In September 2026, the IMF said documented additions since the first program review came from private donations without public resources. A gift and a purchase have different implications for a public budget. The statement covers a defined period; it does not say that all older holdings were acquired free, nor does it calculate the project’s total cost. [4]

Wallet downloads do not show whether people keep making payments. Fernando Alvarez, David Argente and Diana Van Patten studied use in NBER paper 29968, revised in February 2023. They combined a representative face-to-face survey with blockchain data about Chivo and found low, concentrated and declining usage. This helps explain the difference between launching a state project and creating an everyday habit. The findings belong to the period studied; they are not, by themselves, a measurement of conditions in 2026. [5]

Suppose we know the bitcoin holdings and today’s price. We can estimate their value, but not the whole outcome: acquisition costs, operating expenses and possible liabilities are missing. In September 2026, the IMF discussed further strengthening governance and risk management for public crypto-asset holdings. A presidential statement or government holdings dashboard is not itself an independent audit. Establishing the project’s profit or loss takes a coherent set of accounts, not merely a rising number on a screen. [4]

El Salvador’s discussions with the IMF are another part of the story. Its September 2026 statement announced a staff-level agreement on the second and third program reviews, periodic checks on implementation. That was a step in the process, not completed approval: the release explicitly required Executive Board approval and prior actions. When reading such news, ask who agreed and what remains to be done. This announcement alone cannot establish whether or when a final decision followed. [4]