A Familiar Playbook on a Red Day
As bitcoin dropped under $66,000 this week, El Salvador leaned into the slide rather than away from it with President Nayib Bukele treating market weakness as an invitation to add to the national stack. The country’s strategic reserve now holds roughly 7,600 BTC, worth more than $510 million at current prices.
Estimates vary slightly by reporting date, ranging from about 7,474 BTC to 7,667 BTC across early June, reflecting the steady drip of new purchases rather than any single large buy.
That accumulation has been consistent because between January and April alone, authorities added more than 1,600 coins, part of a long-running policy of acquiring close to one bitcoin per day regardless of short-term volatility. The approach has left the treasury sitting on a substantial unrealized gain after the rallies of 2024 and 2025.
Buying Through an IMF Truce
El Salvador’s accumulation is notable because it continues despite pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Under a $1.4 billion financing deal, the government agreed to changes that made accepting bitcoin optional rather than mandatory for businesses, softening the legal-tender framework Bukele championed when the country first adopted bitcoin as legal tender in 2021.
Even so, the purchases have not stopped. The IMF has at times suggested El Salvador is merely shuffling existing coins between wallets rather than buying new ones, a characterization the Bukele administration disputes. Bitcoin.com News has also reported that the country passed an IMF review while continuing to grow its holdings, once again highlighting the tension between the lender’s conditions and the government’s onchain ambitions.
In the past, Bukele indicated to the media that El Salvador may hold more bitcoin than public estimates show, pointing to multiple revenue sources feeding the reserve. The mix of daily buys, dip purchases, and opaque accounting makes the exact figure difficult to pin down, but the trend line has pointed steadily upward.
What the Reserve Means for the Economy
Beyond its treasury accumulation, El Salvador has tied bitcoin to its broader push to modernize finance and attract investment. In this regard, crypto-linked remittances reached $17.38 million in the first quarter of 2026, rising nearly 50% from the same period a year earlier, though they still account for well under 1% of the country’s total remittance flows.
For Bukele, the reserve is as much a political statement as a financial one, and each dip purchase reinforces a narrative of conviction that has made El Salvador a reference point for other governments (especially those weighing whether to hold bitcoin on their balance sheets). Critics counter that concentrating public funds in a volatile asset exposes a small, dollarized economy to outsized risk.
If bitcoin extends its slide, El Salvador’s stated playbook calls for more buying, deepening a position that has already turned the country into one of the most closely watched sovereign holders of the asset.
