El Salvadorans Complain About Lost Money In Chivo Crypto Wallets, Government Is Silent
JAKARTA - Some of the money from Chivo's wallet issued by the state of El Salvador was reported missing. This is known from the tweets of several Salvadorans who post on their social media.
In a December 16 Twitter thread started by user “commissioner”, at least 50 Salvadorans have reported losses in December totaling more than 96,000 US dollars, after using government Bitcoin (BTC) wallets. Some of these deals cost as little as 61 US dollars, but others say they lost thousands or even more.
“There is a flow of security in the wallet where money and transactions disappear,” Luis Guardado said in a direct appeal to El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, as quoted by Cointelegraph. “No tech support and just useless calls, where is my money.”
Hilo con algunos afectados por la Chivo Gualet.1- $16,000 pic.twitter.com/EC3hehXKDz
— El Comisionado (@_elcomisionado_) December 18, 2021
Bukele said in October that 3 million El Salvadorans use their Chivo wallets, roughly half of the country's 6.5 million people.
Since El Salvador's Bitcoin Act was first proposed in June, many people in the country have opposed the measure for various reasons. These include reasons for the high volatility of cryptocurrencies and claims that they are an unreliable investment for retirement funds.
Protesters marched through the capital San Salvador before the law took effect on Sept. 7, with subsequent protests seeing some manage to rob and burn Chivo stalls.
The President of El Salvador has frequently used social media to promote the adoption of BTC as well as related projects, including using geothermal energy from the country's volcanoes to mine crypto and building a Bitcoin City initially funded by $1 billion in BTC bonds.
He also uses the platform to announce his Bitcoin purchases to the world. At the time of publication, the state treasury holds 1,391 BTC – roughly USD 71 million with crypto asset prices approaching USD 50,000 for the holiday period later this year.