A reserve built over five years Five years ago, El Salvador's Congress voted 62 to 22 to pass the world's first Bitcoin Law, making the small Central American nation the first country on eart
Five years ago, El Salvador's Congress voted 62 to 22 to pass the world's first Bitcoin Law, making the small Central American nation the first country on earth to grant $BTC legal tender status. The date was June 8, 2021. Half a decade on, the commitment has not wavered. The government now holds 7,677 BTC worth approximately $480 million, and it is still accumulating. According to Bitcoin Magazine, the country has never sold a single coin.
El Salvador has run a dollar-cost averaging strategy since President @nayibbukele announced a policy of purchasing one bitcoin per day in November 2022.In the twelve months since June 2025, El Salvador added more than 1,600 BTC to its stack, including a tactical purchase of over 1,000 BTC in a single week during a November market dip.
The accumulation did not come without external pressure. Under a $1.4 billion loan agreement, El Salvador committed to strict conditions, including rolling back mandatory Bitcoin acceptance laws and reducing public sector involvement in Bitcoin-related activities.To meet IMF conditions, El Salvador's Legislative Assembly passed changes to its Bitcoin Law, stripping $BTC of its mandatory legal tender status for private transactions while retaining it as an optional currency.
Even so, Bukele held the line on the reserve itself. "No, it's not stopping," he posted on X in March. "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." The legal structure underpins that defiance. While the government formally paused direct Bitcoin purchases to comply with the loan deal, the Bitcoin Office operates outside the defined fiscal sector, allowing it to continue small daily acquisitions without violating performance criteria.
At the start of 2026, the Bitcoin Office declared the country was going "all in" on both bitcoin and artificial intelligence.El Salvador offers no capital gains tax on bitcoin or cryptocurrency transactions, a policy the government doubled down on in early 2026 to court foreign investors.El Salvador ranks fifth among sovereign holders of bitcoin globally, behind the United States, China, the United Kingdom, and Ukraine, according to data from BitcoinTreasuries.
The remittance argument that first sold the Bitcoin Law to the public, however, remains largely unproven. El Salvador is one of the most remittance-dependent economies in the world, with personal transfers from abroad equal to roughly 24 percent of GDP. In Q1 2026, total remittances reached $2.43 billion, but crypto accounted for just $17.38 million of that figure, or 0.71 percent of the total.
SourcesBitcoin Magazine: Five Years On, El Salvador Is Still Buying BitcoinDecrypt: El Salvador Is Buying Bitcoin Despite IMF Compliance: How?bne IntelliNews: El Salvador's Bitcoin Reserve Tops $600mn as IMF Compliance Questions Persist
