The IMF has finally referred to the current status of the accumulation of bitcoin by the government of El Salvador in its latest compliance report, stating that the government had been consolidating its bitcoin stash from several addresses into one.
IMF Bombshell Footnote Solves El Salvador's Bitcoin Accumulation Mystery
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El Salvador Bitcoin Accumulation Mystery Revealed: IMF Reveals Consolidation Scheme
The most recent report on the compliance performance of El Salvador, which examines compliance to maintain a $1.4 billion credit facility with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has finally revealed the mystery regarding the Salvadoran government’s continued accumulation of bitcoin.
The report, which calls into attention the effects of the liquidity policies of Chivo Wallet, El Salvador’s official bitcoin wallet, over the bitcoin non-accumulation goals, discloses that the government has not been purchasing more bitcoin for some time.
In a footnote referring to the mitigation of bitcoin-linked risks that declares the authorities “continue to comply with commitments not to voluntarily accumulate bitcoin, nor issue bitcoin-indexed/denominated debt or tokenized instruments that could create government liabilities,” the IMF states:
Increases in bitcoin holdings in the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Fund reflect the consolidation of bitcoin across various government-owned wallets.
The remark is the first official note from the fund clarifying that, while government authorities have claimed these additions to the Salvadoran strategic bitcoin reserve were “purchases,” there are just movements from addresses with bitcoin already owned by the country.
This theory had already been proposed by Forbes contributor Javier Bastardo after Rodrigo Valdes, Director of Western Hemisphere Department at the IMF, confirmed the country’s adherence to the deal’s conditions in March. Bastardo floated the idea that, while the National Bitcoin Office often reported “purchases,” it was likely that the government was just moving previously acquired BTC. This ambiguous communication policy is still used to this day, as the office recently claimed to have “bought” more bitcoin.
In March, President Nayib Bukele himself had stressed that the country would continue buying bitcoin no matter what. “No, it’s not stopping. 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,” he stated in a post published on social media.
Read more: Is Someone Lying? IMF Confirms El Salvador’s Compliance With Bitcoin Non-Accumulation Commitment
Read more: Quid Pro Quo: El Salvador Scores $1.4 Billion IMF Credit by Scaling Back Bitcoin Activities
