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- When asked whether El Salvador would eject Bitcoin to receive billions in funding from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Vice President Félix Ulloa insisted that the country would never forsake BTC.
- The IMF has been using financial assistance to drive its anti-bitcoin agenda, with Argentina forced to prohibit all banks from serving crypto firms in exchange for a $44 billion loan.
The International Monetary Fund has been against Bitcoin for years and hasn’t shied away from criticizing cryptocurrencies every chance it gets. It has used its significant financial resources to push its anti-Bitcoin agenda, forcing developing countries to forsake BTC for new loans or reprieve on existing facilities. However, one country refuses to fold to the IMF’s pressure—El Salvador.
One of the smaller countries in Central America and with a GDP smaller than the tiniest US state, El Salvador barely makes headlines in the global arena. However, on the BTC front, El Salvador is a giant that has pushed the boundaries of adoption further than most economic powerhouses.
When President Nayib Bukele declared Bitcoin a legal tender, he was met with criticism by traditional powers like the World Bank and the IMF. However, he soldiered on, and today, El Salvador uses BTC for payments alongside the US dollar.
And as Bukele fights the good Bitcoin war, his second in command is standing firmly behind him.
In a recent interview, El Salvador’s Bitcoin stand came up; a reporter asked Vice President Félix Ulloa if it came down to it, whether the Bukele administration would back down from its Bitcoin backing for a loan from the IMF, and his answer was an emphatic NO!
“El Salvador… presents risks not present in Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic or Panama: democracies with strong rule of law.”
Read my latest – featuring an interview with Vice President Félix Ulloa – on how economic issues will put Bukele to the test.https://t.co/4YzpCKxUca
— Will Freeman (@WillGFreeman) February 14, 2024
Maintain Bitcoin! El Salvador Remains Unmoved
El Salvador’s courage to stand against the IMF can’t be overstated. The country’s economy has performed poorly over the past few years, and while employment and foreign direct investment have slightly improved, the country is nowhere close to its economic goals.
Bukele was recently re-elected, and improving the economy was one of his election pledges. With this in mind, he has been pushing for a $1.3 billion loan from the multinational lender for several months. Reports have revealed that IMF has been pushing the Bukele government to abandon its Bitcoin stand to fast-track the loan, but as Ulloa revealed, Bukele would rather miss out on the loan than forsake his Bitcoin convictions.
The IMF has relied on this “forsake Bitcoin, get money” approach to bully sovereign nations into taking radical stands against crypto. Argentina, yet another Latin American country, is a great example.
In mid-2022, the IMF agreed to extend a $44 billion loan to Argentina under the condition that it discouraged crypto use. Argentina, which was suffering from hyperinflation and dollar scarcity, was short of options, and its legislators agreed to the deal. Shortly after, the central bank prohibited regulated financial institutions from processing crypto payments, denying millions the critical on-and off-ramps.
