El Salvador continues to stack Bitcoin despite a high-stakes $1.4 billion IMF deal, the nation’s economy minister, Maria Luisa Hayem, confirmed.
“Bitcoin keeps being an important project,” she noted. “There is an asset accumulation that we’re seeing from the government perspective, from the private sector perspective.” The Salvadoran government reached a deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), last December, after four years of negotiations. They agreed on a $1.4 billion loan program to be disbursed over 40 months.
However, in a recent press briefing, Rodrigo Valdes, IMF’s director of the Western Hemisphere Department, confirmed that EL Salvador “continues to comply with their commitment of non-accumulation of bitcoin by the overall fiscal sector.” “The program of El Salvador is not about Bitcoin. It’s much more, much deeper in structural reforms, in terms of governance, in terms of transparency,” he said.
According to El Salvador’s Bitcoin Office data, the Central American nation has acquired 7 Bitcoin worth more than $650,000 in the 7 days until April 29.
“There’s a commitment of President Bukele to keep accumulating assets as a way to do precisely that,” she added. Additionally, in yet another strategic move, El Salvador’s Ministry of Education has announced a financial literacy program for schoolchildren, which would include Bitcoin education.
Minister Hayem added that the nation is committed to accumulating the assets and that crypto remains a priority.