Tracking El Salvador's Bitcoin Reserves: Live Government Data
How we built a real-time tracker for El Salvador's national Bitcoin treasury using official government blockchain data from bitcoin.gob.sv.
The World's First National Bitcoin Treasury
In September 2021, El Salvador made history by becoming the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. Since then, the government has accumulated over 7,567 BTC, making the country a pioneer in state-level cryptocurrency adoption.
But what makes El Salvador's strategy truly special is the transparency. Unlike most government reserves, every single Bitcoin transaction by the government is verifiable on the blockchain through their official portal.
bitcoin.gob.sv: The Official Portal
El Salvador's National Bitcoin Office operates bitcoin.gob.sv, a self-hosted instance of mempool.space, the world's most popular open-source blockchain explorer. This portal allows anyone to verify the government's Bitcoin holdings without relying on third parties.
Most importantly, their API is completely open. You don't need authentication or API keys. Any developer can access the treasury wallet data in real-time.
The Numbers: What the Data Shows
The government of El Salvador maintains its Bitcoin across 18 distinct wallets. The bulk of holdings come from large purchases made in 2021-2022, but the most fascinating part is their "1 BTC per day" strategy that started in November 2022.
Every single day, without exception, the government buys exactly 1 BTC. They have now made over 693 consecutive daily purchases. This dollar-cost averaging (DCA) strategy has proven highly effective, with an estimated return of +85% on the total investment.
Our Tracker: Real-Time Data
We built our tracker at ia.sv/bitcoin-reserves to make this information accessible and visual for everyone. Instead of having to navigate a technical blockchain explorer, our tracker presents the data in a clear and understandable way.
What you can see:
- • Real-time total BTC balance with USD value
- • Estimated profit/loss on total investment
- • Historical Bitcoin accumulation chart
- • Latest 30 transactions with links to the official explorer
- • Stats: sats per citizen, % of GDP, average price paid
- • Explanation of the "1 BTC per day" strategy
The data auto-refreshes every 5 minutes through our server proxy, which queries the bitcoin.gob.sv API directly. We don't use any third-party services for wallet data. Everything is verifiable on the blockchain.
Why Transparency Matters
El Salvador is one of the few governments in the world that openly publishes its reserve holdings in a verifiable format. While most central banks publish quarterly or annual reports on their gold or foreign currency reserves, El Salvador allows anyone in the world to verify its Bitcoin reserves in real-time, transaction by transaction.
This radical transparency is possible thanks to the public nature of the Bitcoin blockchain. Every satoshi in the government's wallets is traceable, auditable, and verifiable by anyone with an internet connection.