El Salvador’s Bitcoin Strategy Faces Election Test With 7,730 BTC

Bitcoin News

El Salvador’s two main opposition parties have nominated candidates for February 2027, setting up a direct challenge to President Nayib Bukele’s third-term bid and the country’s Bitcoin (BTC) policy. The Nationalist Republican Alliance, ARENA, selected former lawmaker Maytee Iraheta, while the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, FMLN, chose physician and union leader Rafael Aguirre. Both campaigns have criticized the government’s Bitcoin strategy as a fiscal failure, but neither has published a rival policy framework. With ARENA holding only two Legislative Assembly seats and FMLN holding none since 2024, any attempt to reverse the national Bitcoin program would require a much broader coalition.

The election challenge arrives while Bukele remains highly popular, with one national poll placing his approval above 94 percent after six years in office. The support appears driven more by crime reduction than by monetary policy, and only 2.2 percent of Salvadorans surveyed identified Bitcoin as his biggest failure. That gap suggests the opposition may avoid making digital-asset policy its central campaign theme, especially because no alternative reserve or payments plan has been presented. For altcoin observers, the more important signal is that Bitcoin has become a symbolic issue in a broader contest over state modernization, fiscal credibility and executive power.

Bukele’s Nuevas Ideas party formally nominated him for a third term this month, with Vice President Felix Ulloa remaining his running mate. The candidacy tests a rewritten constitutional order that has already expanded executive authority and weakened legislative checks. Whoever wins in February 2027 will govern until 2033, giving the next administration a long runway to either preserve or dismantle the Bitcoin experiment. The opposition’s limited congressional presence matters here: without enough lawmakers, ARENA and FMLN cannot easily change monetary law, treasury allocation rules or the institutional mandate that allows the state to accumulate digital assets.

Bitcoin’s legal position in El Salvador has already shifted from its 2021 peak as mandatory legal tender. Following a $1.4 billion IMF loan agreement in February 2025, the government removed the requirement for businesses to accept BTC, returning the US dollar to its role as the sole official currency for everyday commerce. The IMF has repeatedly warned that the Bitcoin program carries fiscal and governance risks, and it has argued that the policy has not measurably improved financial inclusion among unbanked Salvadorans. The change leaves Bitcoin as a state-backed reserve and adoption project rather than a compulsory payments rail.

The state’s accumulation program has continued despite that legal retreat. Official tracker data reviewed as of July 27 shows El Salvador holding roughly 7,730 BTC, up from about 7,700 BTC a month earlier. The steady increase confirms that the National Bitcoin Office is still purchasing approximately one BTC per day, a policy Bukele has framed as long-term reserve building rather than short-term trading. In January, the government also increased its gold reserves, suggesting a broader hard-asset strategy. For market participants, the daily purchases are small relative to global volume, but they keep sovereign exposure to all-time-high cycle risk visible.

The next president will inherit a reserve that remains fully exposed to Bitcoin’s price swings. Because the state has not disclosed a comprehensive risk-management framework, critics argue that daily purchases could amplify fiscal stress during a prolonged bear market. Supporters counter that dollar-cost averaging into a scarce asset can build long-term optionality, particularly if adoption infrastructure eventually attracts payments, tourism and foreign investment. The political contest will therefore test whether El Salvador’s Bitcoin policy survives as a permanent treasury strategy or becomes a reversible experiment tied to one president’s agenda. Any reversal would likely require legislative action, IMF compliance checks or a sharp deterioration in public finances.

COINOTAG’s proprietary 42-indicator composite S/R scoring engine rates Bitcoin’s nearest support at $64,485 with an 89/100 score, driven by HVN and Swing Low confluence, while resistance at $66,956 scores 78/100 from Donchian Upper and Swing High. Spot BTC at $64,831 sits above the strongest support, and the bullish MACD with RSI 52.75 favors a retest of $65,068, a moderate 52/100 level tied to Ichimoku Tenkan and EMA 50. Derivatives positioning is cautiously bullish: funding is 0.0018%, open interest is $12.75 billion, and the long/short ratio is 1.72, though Fear and Greed at 30 signals fear. A daily close below $64,485 would weaken the uptrend thesis.