LatinNews Daily - 11 July 2025

*El Salvador’s reserves of cryptocurrency bitcoin have exceeded US$700m according to a post on social media by the government’s bitcoin office. According to the post, El Salvador has 6,233.18 bitcoin worth US$700.97m. This is up from 6,101.18 bitcoin worth US$527.17m in March. The government led by authoritarian President Nayib Bukele made bitcoin legal tender in September 2021, straining relations with international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In February the IMF signed off on a US$1.4bn 40-month extended arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) for El Salvador, after securing key concessions from the Bukele government regarding bitcoin – that it agreed to make bitcoin acceptance by the private sector voluntary, while “the public sector’s participation in bitcoin-related activities will be confined”. Last month three US senators, Tim Kaine (D-VA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), and Alex Padilla (D-CA), introduced new legislation which called for a report into the use of bitcoin in El Salvador as part of a more general bill to “hold El Salvador accountable for its human rights abuses and its collusion with the [Donald] Trump Administration to imprison people from the United States without due process” – a reference to Bukele’s crackdown on dissent and the arrangement whereby the US pays his government to imprison alleged criminals and deported migrants. The report would, among other things, include “an assessment of existing gaps in the use of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies by the Government of El Salvador being exploited for corruption; and an assessment of whether Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies have been used in El Salvador as a vector to evade financial sanctions imposed on other countries”.

End of preview - This article contains approximately 280 words.

Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article

Not a Subscriber?

Choose from one of the following options

• Subscribe
• Sign up for a one-time, 14-day trial