El Salvador went ahead with President Nayib Bukele’s reelection in February 2024, but the country’s Bitcoin policy later changed significantly. The government no longer requires businesses to accept Bitcoin, and taxes must be paid in US dollars.
In February 2024, Vice President Felix Ulloa said Bitcoin would remain legal tender if Bukele won another term. According to a Reuters report, Ulloa also said the government would continue pursuing Bitcoin-backed bonds despite pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
At the time, the government pointed to the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the United States three weeks earlier as another reason for its confidence in Bitcoin.
What changed after the election
The biggest change came in 2025, when El Salvador amended its Bitcoin Law as part of an agreement with the IMF. President Nayib Bukele also made statements on X, explaining where the country currently stands in 2026.
Normalmente no contesto directamente a tanta noticia falsa, pero esta me pareció un buen ejemplo de cómo estos “periodistas” y medios de comunicación MIENTEN descaradamente a sus lectores.
Lean este tuit, que ASEGURA que El Salvador ha transferido sus reservas de bitcoin a un privado, lo cual es TOTALMENTE FALSO.
Aquí está el enlace de la misma institución que EL PAÍS cita como fuente: el Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI): https://t.co/o7KtcAItBw
Léanlo. Claramente dice todo lo contrario: que lo único que se transfirió fueron las acciones de Chivo, algo que se ofreció hace año y medio, y NO la Reserva Estratégica de Bitcoin.
De paso pueden leer cómo El Salvador ha logrado un superávit fiscal primario y ha superado todas las expectativas de crecimiento económico gracias a la seguridad y a la confianza de los inversionistas, además de haber alcanzado una reducción significativa de la pobreza, apoyada por mejoras en la eficiencia de los servicios públicos 😘
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) September 4, 2026
The changes removed the obligation for private businesses to accept Bitcoin. The government also stopped allowing taxes to be paid in Bitcoin and reduced the public sector’s role in the project. The IMF says these reforms removed the key features of Bitcoin’s legal-tender status.
That makes the original 2024 promise important as a record of where the government stood at the time, but it no longer describes the current rules.
The change also shows how economic pressure can affect crypto policy. The IMF had pushed El Salvador to reduce the risks linked to Bitcoin, particularly around financial stability, consumer protection, and public finances. The country later received a $1.4 billion IMF program that included reforms to its Bitcoin policy.
The government has not completely abandoned Bitcoin. It still holds Bitcoin, and the IMF reported in September 2026 that no public funds had been used for new Bitcoin accumulation. The government is also working on rules for managing its existing crypto holdings.
ALSO READ: IMF Highlights Strong Growth and Ongoing Bitcoin Discussions in El Salvador
The Bitcoin bond plan also changed
Bukele’s government had promoted Bitcoin-backed bonds as another part of its crypto strategy. The original report said these bonds were expected to move forward after the election.
That did not happen as planned. Under the IMF program, El Salvador committed not to issue or guarantee Bitcoin-indexed or Bitcoin-denominated public debt.
The result is a more limited Bitcoin strategy than the one described in the original 2024 report. Bitcoin remains part of El Salvador’s financial and political story, but its use by businesses is now voluntary and the government has tighter limits on how it can expand its Bitcoin exposure.
For readers looking at El Salvador as a test case for national crypto adoption, that distinction matters. The country has not simply abandoned Bitcoin, but neither has it maintained the original legal-tender model announced in 2021.
The government’s approach now sits somewhere between its original Bitcoin experiment and the tighter financial rules required under its IMF program.
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