El Salvador President Nayib Bukele says that Chivo already has 1.1 million users. Even though the state-run have yet to be made available to “65%of the phone models” used in the country. Bukele also stated that his government had “bought the dip” in BTC rates over the weekend.
Download Chivo, Get Rewards
Bukele is rewarding people who download the Chivo app with USD 30 worth of BTC as a golden welcome. Despite the government saying that Chivo use is voluntary.
Bukele stated on Twitter that the Chivo app and his BTC adoption goals were already a success, writing:
“It looks that we will be able to bank more people in the space of month than [previous governments] did in 40 years with the nationalization and privatization of traditional banks.”
Bukele Purchased additional BTC 150
Bukele also states that his government has purchased an additional BTC 150. Therefore bringing the total amount owed by the El Salvador Treasury to BTC 700.
According to author Mark Jeffrey, the recent BTC purchase is proof that the country is once again “punching above its weight.”
Despite much criticism, Chivo rollouts appear to be continuing. According to the most recent statistics from CoinATMRadar, 231 Chivo ATMs are currently operating. Out of these 231, 31 of them are in the United States. Bukele has stated that the number is really more incredible, with 50 machines in the United States.
The “crash of an SMS carrier produced a mistake in 28,000 requests for Chivo registration,” according to Bukele. Therefore, creating an hour of problems. As a result, he claimed that 28,000 new members were yet to get their USD 30 worth of BTC. However, his technical staff would guarantee that they received the cash as quickly as possible.
A Mere ‘Snafu’
The President dismissed the episode as a mere snafu, stating that the blunder was due to a “telephone company error.”
He reaffirmed his claims that the application was “working at 100%,” but added:
“It is almost impossible to have 300,000 new registrations per day and not have some temporary incidents.”
Worthwhile, the Salvadoran press, which is wary of anything BTC or Bukele-related, is reporting further issues with the software. An economist at the Central American Institute for Fiscal Studies (ICEFI), Ricardo Castaneda, told La Prensa Gráfica that allegations that Chivo enabled commission-free transactions were a “lie.”
He argued that commission-free transfers were a “fallacy” because the cost of the transfers was paid for with public funds, implying that the “entire population paid the expense of “commission-free” Chivo transactions.”
Bukele, The ‘Dictator’ of El Salvador
The media has joined opposition parties in alleging that Bukele’s recent moves, which have seen his administration replace judicial officials and change the constitution to let him seek re-election in 2024, have “taken pages out of the dictatorial playbook.”
And by changing his Twitter bio to say “Dictator of El Salvador,” Bukele appears to have either agreed with their assessment of him or sought to mock them.
