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IMF Praises El Salvador — But Still Tries To Scale Back Its Bitcoin Project
The International Monetary Fund has praised El Salvador for improving its economy — but scolded it at the same time for its ongoing Bitcoin experiment.
In a statement Friday, the IMF said that it had approved a $139 million disbursement to the Central American nation while also trying to “reduce the state’s involvement in Bitcoin-related activities.”
El Salvador in 2021 made Bitcoin legal tender, much to the ire of the IMF and other major institutions. The Latin American country was at the time negotiating a development loan with the agency.
“El Salvador’s economy continues to perform strongly”
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) October 1, 2026
The IMF in September said that El Salvador wasn’t buying bitcoin; the country’s Bitcoin Office has repeatedly said that it does buy the cryptocurrency.
“Economic activity has exceeded expectations, supported by sustained improvements in security and investor confidence, as macroeconomic imbalances continue to be addressed,” the IMF said.
It continued: “However, certain performance criteria were not met, including on the Bitcoin accumulation front, for which waivers were granted based on strong corrective measures and renewed commitments.”
The IMF further said that the Salvadoran state’s involvement in Bitcoin-related activities is being unwound and that “no further bitcoin accumulation is envisaged beyond the documented donations.”
Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele in 2022 said the country would buy one bitcoin per day but it was never clear where the money was coming from — or if he was actually buying at all.
The IMF said in September that El Salvador was — at least for some time —not using public funds to accumulate bitcoin but rather had received bitcoin from private donations.
El Salvador and the IMF entered a $1.4 billion loan agreement at the end of December but the fund asked for the country to scale back certain aspects of its Bitcoin strategy.
The Salvadoran state gifted its citizens bitcoin in 2021 and debuted a wallet with the hope of getting more citizens using the cryptocurrency in the dollarized country.
President Bukele in 2024 admitted that Salvadorans weren’t using the cryptocurrency to buy things as expected, but always boasted that the government was still stacking sats.
This post IMF Praises El Salvador — But Still Tries To Scale Back Its Bitcoin Project first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) released a technical assistance report on September 25. In the report, the IMF informed the Bank of Ghana (BoG) and Ghana’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC Ghana) that its current guidelines and regulations “fall short of comprehensive oversight.”
The IMF noted that while current regulation was “directionally aligned with global standards,” Ghana’s central bank and the SEC must close key gaps before the digital asset licensing regime goes live later in December 2026.
In December 2025, Ghana passed the Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASP) Act (Act 1154). The Act gives the Bank of Ghana and SEC Ghana regulatory and supervisory authority over virtual assets.
In line with the VASP Act, the Bank of Ghana regulates and supervises:
The Securities and Exchange Commission Ghana regulates and supervises:
The current framework also requires stablecoin issuers (cedi-backed or backed by foreign currency) to obtain a licence to continue marketing to the Ghanaian market. Stablecoin issuers may keep reserves abroad, provided they are held in banks in “non-high-risk” jurisdictions.
The Bank of Ghana and the SEC each have their own sandbox. On August 19, 2026, SEC Ghana added 9 new firms to its crypto sandbox, growing the number from 11 to 20 participants. The sandbox, which initially launched in March 2026, is expected to run for a 12-month pilot period.
Later that month, on August 25, the BoG inaugurated a five-agency Virtual Assets Coordinating Committee (VACC). The committee includes representatives from the BoG, SEC Ghana, the Ministry of Finance, the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC), and the Cyber Security Authority (CSA).
The BoG governor described the committee as necessary for coordinating regulatory and supervisory activity.
Less than a week later, UMB Bank gained approval from both the SEC and the Bank of Ghana to provide virtual accounts to eligible VASPs.
Despite all this and the IMF’s acknowledgement that “legislation is in place” and that Ghanaian “authorities are ready to regulate,” the IMF still found gaps in the current framework. The IMF outlined those gaps and its recommendations, urging the BoG and SEC Ghana to implement them before December 2026. They include, but aren’t limited to:
To combat this, the IMF urged the SEC and the BoG to provide regulations that allow for “comprehensive regulation and supervision of the crypto market’s activities.”
2. Market Conduct, Abuse, Custody and Trading: The existing market abuse provisions apply almost exclusively to proprietary trading. The IMF called for expanding these rules to cover order books, front-running, wash trading, spoofing, and other order misuse by brokers.
The IMF also noted that the current rules do not explicitly prohibit asset rehypothecation. It called for clear rules prohibiting the rehypothecation of clients’ assets without consent. The IMF asked the SEC to develop dedicated trading guidelines covering pre- and post-trade transparency, disclosure, whitepaper requirements, and listing/delisting criteria.
3. Stablecoin Arrangements: The current stablecoin framework does not clearly state end-user redemption rights or minimum rules for liquid reserves. The IMF also noted that the current framework does not clearly distinguish between cedi-backed stablecoins and foreign stablecoins.
The IMF asked regulators to prioritise binding rules for par-value redemption rights. It also asked regulators to enforce liquid reserve allocations and establish clear currency-matching requirements.
4. Reporting, Disclosures and Data Collection: The IMF warned that supervisory offsite reporting requirements are sparse, static, and non-standardised. It relies on annual financial statements rather than dynamic market data.
It asked regulators to consider implementing standardised, activity-specific, periodic reporting templates that cover risk metrics, volume, and reserve details.
The IMF report estimates that somewhere between 8% and 17% of Ghana’s population participate in the crypto market. With an estimated $21 billion in annual virtual asset transactions, Ghana is the fifth-largest cryptocurrency market in sub-Saharan Africa.
The scale of the market means that Ghana’s regulators need to be careful and thorough as they draft regulations.
The IMF also noted that most of Ghana’s crypto transaction volume is dominated by USDT stablecoin. It also highlighted that current volumes show Ghanaians use USDT for crypto trading and to protect their funds against inflation. Unlike remittance-dependent economies, Ghana showed balanced gross inflows and outflows, driven by increased stablecoin use in B2B cross-border commerce.
With just two months before December, the Bank of Ghana and SEC Ghana face a narrow window to review and refine their regulations.
However, considering that the IMF conducted the technical assessment mission at the request of the Ghanaian central bank, the regulators seem intent on providing clear digital asset governance and regulations for its market.
Originally published at https://cryptoafrica.news on September 28, 2026.
IMF Flags Gaps in Ghana’s Crypto Framework Ahead of December 2026 Licensing Go-Live — Crypto Africa was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
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