Two headlines collided this week. One said El Salvador privatised its state bitcoin wallet. The other said it handed its $632 million bitcoin reserve to a private company. The first comes straight from the IMF. The second, according to President Nayib Bukele, is “totally false.”
The gap between those two headlines is the real story. A custodial wallet app and a national bitcoin treasury are different things with different risks — and the confusion is a useful reminder of what custody actually means, for a country and for you.
Key facts
- On September 3, 2026, the IMF reached a staff-level agreement on the combined second and third reviews of El Salvador’s $1.4 billion Extended Fund Facility, unlocking about $140 million.
- The IMF confirmed that majority ownership and operational control of the government’s Chivo wallet went to an unnamed private operator; the state keeps a minority stake and custody duties for customer assets.
- According to the IMF, all bitcoin added to El Salvador’s holdings since June 27, 2025 came from private donations, not public money; donors and amounts were not disclosed.
- El Salvador’s reserve stands at about 7,764 BTC (~$632 million), up from about 5,968 BTC, including a 1,090 BTC addition reported as a purchase in November 2025.
- On September 4, El País reported the “majority ownership” as applying to the bitcoin reserve; Bukele called the report “totally false.”
- On Saturday, September 5, bitcoin traded near $79,600 (−1.5%), with total crypto market cap around $2.78 trillion.
What did the IMF say about El Salvador on September 3?
On September 3, 2026, the IMF announced a staff-level agreement on the combined second and third reviews of El Salvador’s $1.4 billion Extended Fund Facility, which would release about $140 million once the IMF board signs off. It also confirmed Chivo’s partial privatisation and said recent bitcoin additions were donated.
The IMF statement is the primary source here. The Extended Fund Facility was approved in February 2025, and the bitcoin conditions attached to it are already familiar: accepting bitcoin became voluntary for businesses, taxes are paid in dollars and public-sector bitcoin purchases are limited. This review checks whether El Salvador kept to those terms.
On Chivo, the wording is precise. Majority ownership and operational control moved to a private operator, while the government kept a minority stake and custodial responsibilities for customer assets. The IMF did not name the operator.
Did El Salvador hand its bitcoin reserve to a private operator?
Based on the IMF’s wording, no. The statement links the change of majority ownership to Chivo, the government’s wallet app, not to the national bitcoin reserve. On September 4, El País reported the majority ownership as applying to the reserve; Bukele called that “totally false” and said only Chivo shares had changed hands.
As Crypto Times laid out, the dispute comes down to two assets that both sound like “the government’s bitcoin.” One is an app that holds citizens’ balances. The other is the state’s own coins. They changed very differently.
| Chivo wallet | Bitcoin reserve | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Custodial wallet app for citizens | State-held BTC, about 7,764 BTC |
| What the IMF said | Majority ownership and control moved to a private operator | Additions since June 27, 2025 came from private donations |
| Who is named | Operator not disclosed | Donors not disclosed |
| Can outsiders check it? | No — balances live in an internal ledger | Yes — an official tracker publishes the holdings |
Where did El Salvador’s new bitcoin come from?
The IMF says every bitcoin added to the national holdings since June 27, 2025 came from private donations and that no public money was used. It did not say who donated or how much each donor gave, as CoinDesk noted. That leaves the most interesting question unanswered.
The numbers are not small. The reserve grew from about 5,968 BTC to about 7,764 BTC, roughly $632 million at September 4 prices. That growth includes a 1,090 BTC addition in November 2025, which was reported at the time as a purchase. If that too was a donation, someone gave a state more than a thousand bitcoin in one go without being named.
There’s nothing illegal implied in that. But “donated by unnamed parties” is not the kind of transparency bitcoin is supposed to offer.
What happens to your coins when a custodial wallet changes owner?
On a custodial wallet, your balance is a line in someone else’s ledger, so a change of owner changes who you depend on. Chivo users now rely on a private operator to run the service and on the state to hold the assets. With self-custody, a company being sold changes nothing about your coins.
A new operator can bring new terms, new fees, new verification checks or a different view on which features to keep. None of that requires your consent, because you never held the keys. That’s true of Chivo, and it’s equally true of any exchange account or custodial app.
In self-custody, the wallet software is just an interface. If the company behind it is acquired or shuts down, your seed phrase still restores the same coins in another wallet. Our guide to the best bitcoin wallets in 2026 covers the options.
In custody you own a claim. In self-custody you own the coins.
Don’t trust, verify: checking a public reserve
Here bitcoin’s transparency does its job. El Salvador’s official tracker shows about 7,764.37 BTC, and coins held on public addresses can be checked by anyone with a block explorer — no need to trust an IMF press release, a newspaper or a president.
That check has limits. It shows where the coins sit, not who controls the keys or who sent them. But it answers the question that started the row: whether the reserve’s coins moved. A custodial app like Chivo offers no equivalent view to its users.
What this means for swap users
The Chivo story is the custodial trade-off at national scale. A non-custodial swap service avoids it by design: SwapZilla has no accounts and holds no balances, so there’s no user ledger that could be sold to a new operator. You send coins from your wallet, a provider executes the swap, and the result goes to an address you control — step by step in how it works.
Each swap still passes through an exchange provider for a few minutes, which carries its own counterparty risk. For how that compares with exchanges and DEXs, see DEX vs CEX vs swap aggregator.
Final thoughts
El Salvador’s review got conflated because “government bitcoin” can mean an app or a treasury. The IMF’s text points to the app. The reserve, by that reading, stayed where it was — and anyone can check the on-chain balance rather than pick a side in the argument.
The less comfortable part is the donations. A reserve funded by unnamed donors is verifiable in size and opaque in origin. For individual users, the lesson is simpler: know which of your coins are a claim on someone’s ledger and which are actually yours.
Read the statement. Then read the chain.