The IMF just released $139M to El Salvador, after formally waiving the country's breach of its Bitcoin limit. The board completed the second and third reviews of the $1.4B loan program on Oct 1. It acknowledged that El Salvador's Bitcoin holdings grew beyond the agreed cap, then forgave it.
The IMF's explanation: the extra $BTC came from private donations, not public funds. Its stated expectation is that there will be no further accumulation beyond those documented donations.
The awkward part: El Salvador's own Bitcoin tracker shows holdings around 7,787 BTC, with about 31 BTC added in the last 30 days and 8 in the past week. The donors haven't been publicly identified. So either the donations keep coming at roughly a coin a day, or the "no further accumulation" line is already being tested.
The fair read: this isn't a pro-Bitcoin pivot by the IMF. The $139M goes to El Salvador's treasury, not into Bitcoin. Control of the Chivo wallet has been handed to a private operator. And the IMF recorded the breach before forgiving it, which makes the cap stricter on paper, not looser.
When a sovereign Bitcoin stack keeps growing through anonymous "donations," is that a clever workaround, or a loophole the IMF chose not to look at?
#ElSalvador #IMF
The IMF's explanation: the extra $BTC came from private donations, not public funds. Its stated expectation is that there will be no further accumulation beyond those documented donations.
The awkward part: El Salvador's own Bitcoin tracker shows holdings around 7,787 BTC, with about 31 BTC added in the last 30 days and 8 in the past week. The donors haven't been publicly identified. So either the donations keep coming at roughly a coin a day, or the "no further accumulation" line is already being tested.
The fair read: this isn't a pro-Bitcoin pivot by the IMF. The $139M goes to El Salvador's treasury, not into Bitcoin. Control of the Chivo wallet has been handed to a private operator. And the IMF recorded the breach before forgiving it, which makes the cap stricter on paper, not looser.
When a sovereign Bitcoin stack keeps growing through anonymous "donations," is that a clever workaround, or a loophole the IMF chose not to look at?
#ElSalvador #IMF
