El Salvador reverses decision on Bitcoin as legal tender after IMF pressure. Government no longer accepts Bitcoin for tax payments.
After four years since becoming the first country to adopt Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender in 2021, El Salvador reversed this decision under pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). El Salvador’s Congress agreed to amend the Bitcoin law on January 30, 2025, in exchange for a $1.4 billion loan from the IMF. While transactions with Bitcoin will remain legal, the government will no longer accept it for tax payments and other governmental transactions, allowing businesses to refrain from its acceptance. Statistics show that 92% of Salvadorans did not use Bitcoin for their transactions, with only 1.3% of the country’s remittances being done in Bitcoin.
