The International Monetary Fund's Executive Board completed the second and third reviews of El Salvador's Extended Fund Facility (EFF) on Thursday, October 1, 2026, approving an immediate disbursement of SDR 101.96 million, roughly $138 million.

The review turned on Bitcoin (BTC): one of the program's performance criteria, tied to the public sector's accumulation of the cryptocurrency, was missed, and the Board waived the miss, clearing the way for the payout. The waiver route is a standard feature of IMF program mechanics: when a performance criterion is missed, the Board can nonetheless authorize the next disbursement and keep the arrangement itself intact.

The Extended Fund Facility is a 40-month arrangement worth approximately $1.4 billion that the IMF's Executive Board approved in February 2025. The program came with a series of commitments on Bitcoin policy, including making merchant acceptance of the cryptocurrency voluntary for the private sector, scaling back the state's direct role in Bitcoin-related activities such as the government-run Chivo wallet, and ce new Bitcoin purchases by public-sector entities. Further reviews across the remaining course of the 40-month arrangement will keep assessing El Salvador's adherence to the program's criteria, including the Bitcoin-related ones.

El Salvador became the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender in September 2021, under President Nayib Bukele. The government has continued to add to its state-held Bitcoin reserve since the IMF arrangement took effect, and the Board's decision to waive the missed accumulation criterion means the $138 million disbursement moves forward even as that reserve keeps growing, keeping the interplay between El Salvador's Bitcoin policy and its IMF commitments in view through the rest of the program.

This content was first published on COINOTAG.