How the IMF and World Bank treat bitcoin

El Salvador: from warning to loan condition

El Salvador's Bitcoin Law made bitcoin legal tender alongside the U.S. dollar and required businesses to accept it. The day after it was published in June 2021, IMF spokesman Gerry Rice told reporters that adoption “raises a number of macroeconomic, financial and legal issues that require very careful analysis.”^[1][2]

On June 16, the finance minister said the government had asked the World Bank for technical help. A World Bank spokesperson said “this is not something the World Bank can support given the environmental and transparency shortcomings,” while adding that the Bank was “committed to helping El Salvador in numerous ways including for currency transparency and regulatory processes.” We found no World Bank press release on the decision; the statement was given by email to Reuters and reported by the BBC and others.^[3]

In January 2022, after the annual Article IV review, the IMF's Executive Board went further: “Directors urged the authorities to narrow the scope of the Bitcoin law by removing Bitcoin’s legal tender status.” The Board cited “large risks associated with the use of Bitcoin on financial stability, financial integrity, and consumer protection, as well as the associated fiscal contingent liabilities,” and some Directors worried about plans for bitcoin-backed bonds.^[4]

The deal came in December 2024, after the government had sought IMF financing since 2021. The staff-level agreement for about US$1.4 billion said acceptance of bitcoin by the private sector would become voluntary, public-sector bitcoin activity and purchases would be “confined,” taxes would be paid only in dollars and the government would gradually unwind its role in the Chivo wallet.^[2][5]

Congress passed the reform first. Decree No. 199 of January 29, 2025 made private acceptance voluntary, and the IMF counted it among the prior actions for the 40-month Extended Fund Facility the Board approved on February 26, 2025. Deputy Managing Director Nigel Clarke said “The potential risks of the Bitcoin project are being addressed in line with Fund policies and with Fund advice to the authorities.”^[6][7]

“One bitcoin a day” vs the IMF reviews

On November 17, 2022, President Nayib Bukele posted: “We are buying one #Bitcoin every day starting tomorrow.” The government's National Bitcoin Office kept announcing purchases after the IMF program began. When critics said the buying would end, Bukele replied on March 4, 2025: “No, it’s not stopping.”^[8][9][10]

The IMF's July 2025 staff report tells a different story. A footnote says “Increases in Bitcoin holdings in the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Fund reflect the consolidation of Bitcoin across various government-owned wallets.” In the letter of intent, the finance minister and central bank president wrote that “the stock of Bitcoins held by the public sector remains unchanged.” Small breaches did occur because Chivo did not sell bitcoin when customers withdrew it; the IMF put them at no more than 1 percent of public holdings.^[11]

The story shifted again in 2026. In September the IMF said documentation showed that bitcoin accumulation since the first review “reflects private donations and that no public resources were used,” and that “no further Bitcoin accumulation beyond the documented donations is expected.” When the Board completed the second and third reviews on October 1, 2026, it granted waivers because “certain performance criteria were not met, including on the Bitcoin accumulation front,” citing “strong corrective measures and renewed commitments.”^[12][13]

Argentina: “discourage the use of crypto-currencies”

Argentina's US$44 billion, 30-month Extended Fund Facility, approved March 25, 2022, carried a pledge in the government's own policy memorandum: “we are taking important steps to (i) discourage the use of crypto-currencies with a view to preventing money laundering, informality and disintermediation.” The staff report repeats it under financial inclusion. The documents don't spell out which steps.^[14]

Central African Republic: legal tender, then repeal

On April 22, 2022, the Central African Republic gave “cryptocurrencies”, and bitcoin in particular, legal tender status, the second country to do so and the first inside a monetary union. The IMF noted the law allowed taxes in crypto and backed bitcoin's convertibility into CFA francs through a trust fund. The regional central bank, BEAC, objected; the BBC reported that its governor wrote to the finance minister that the law suggested a currency to compete with or replace the CFA franc.^[15][16]

IMF staff said the law “appears to be inconsistent with the CEMAC Treaty, which provides the BEAC with the exclusive right to issue banknotes and coins serving as legal tender,” and that “It would be appropriate to remove the legal tender status of bitcoin.” Staff welcomed the regional banking supervisor COBAC's May 6, 2022 decision barring the institutions it supervises from holding or using crypto.^[15]

The cost was concrete. A staff-monitored program's second review “could not be completed as uncertainties created by the granting of legal tender status to crypto assets were not resolved.” Parliament amended the law on March 23, 2023, and repealing its legal tender and convertibility provisions was a prior action for the 38-month, US$191.4 million Extended Credit Facility approved on April 27, 2023.^[17][18]

Elsewhere: Pakistan and the Marshall Islands

The IMF's tone has softened where crypto is regulated rather than made money. In Pakistan's December 2025 review, staff noted the July 2025 Virtual Assets Ordinance and said integrating virtual assets “should involve a structured approach, balancing innovation with robust regulatory safeguards.”^[19]

The IMF-FSB paper also notes that the Marshall Islands passed a law to make a token called SOV legal tender, but “SOV was never issued.”^[20]

The IMF's general policy

The October 2021 Global Financial Stability Report summed up its crypto chapter this way: “The crypto ecosystem offers an exciting new world of opportunities but also challenges,” and warned that “Crypto assets in emerging markets may accelerate dollarization risks.”^[21]

In February 2023 the Board endorsed a nine-point framework, “Elements of Effective Policies for Crypto Assets.” Point one: “do not grant crypto assets official currency or legal tender status.” Point two ties crypto to capital controls: “maintain effectiveness of capital flow management measures.” Directors also said “strict bans are not the first-best option,” though “A few Directors, however, thought that outright bans should not be ruled out.”^[22][23]

The September 2023 IMF-FSB synthesis paper for the G20 explains the legal tender objection: central banks “lack the ability to adjust interest rates on a foreign currency,” prices could swing with the crypto asset, and government revenues “could be exposed to exchange-rate risk.” It also argues volatility “could affect poor households more.”^[20]

CBDCs yes, bitcoin as money no

The IMF supports central banks that experiment with their own digital currencies (CBDCs). Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in 2022 that “There is no universal case for CBDCs because each economy is different,” argued that well-designed central bank money compares favorably with unbacked crypto assets, which she called inherently volatile, and said “trust must be anchored in credible central banks with a history of delivering on their mandates.” She described CBDC holding limits used in the Bahamas, China and the Eastern Caribbean.^[24]

In its 2025 statistics manual (BPM7), the IMF records bitcoin-like crypto, with no issuer, “as nonproduced nonfinancial assets, and not as financial assets, mainly because there is no counterpart liability.” That is an accounting choice, not a ban: the same chapter groups such crypto with natural resources, contracts, leases and licenses, rather than with bonds or currency.^[25][26]

The World Bank

Beyond El Salvador, the World Bank has said little about bitcoin itself. A 2024 World Bank blog by three staff members argues “For central banks, the answer today is no,” calling crypto “inherently volatile” and short of “the basic requirements for reserve assets,” while allowing that better regulation and infrastructure “may gradually address these concerns.”^[27]

On digital money, the Bank's payments work focuses on central bank digital currencies, including a 2021 review of CBDC experiments for cross-border payments. The IMF and World Bank also co-authored the 2018 Bali Fintech Agenda, which the IMF's 2023 crypto framework says it puts into practice.^[28][22]

Their stated reasons

Across these documents, the institutions give the same reasons: price volatility; loss of monetary policy control; fiscal risk from holding bitcoin, taking taxes in it or guaranteeing convertibility; consumer protection; and money laundering and terrorist financing (AML/CFT). In monetary unions and dollarized economies, they add a legal point: only the official issuer can create legal tender.^{[4][23][20][15]}

The critics

How it turned out

El Salvador: independent research found bitcoin use low and falling, and Fitch cited the bitcoin law in its 2022 downgrade. Bitcoin is now voluntary, Chivo is majority privately owned, and the IMF says the economy has beaten expectations while the government still holds bitcoin.^[30][31][13]

Central African Republic: legal tender lasted under a year. The IMF reported that the related Sango coin project stalled, with less than US$2 million sold, about 0.2 percent of planned issuance.^[17]