Complaints about failures of El Salvador's Chivo Wallet return

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By TP

Bitcoin users in El Salvador have once again taken to social media to express their complaints regarding the operation of the state bitcoin wallet (BTC Chivo Wallet. Salvadorans they took advantage the government's statement regarding a leak of wallet data, to once again make public a series of questions about the Chivo Wallet. Among the complaints, the questions about lack of communication and updating of the product. «They had not published anything since 2022,» express one of the followers, coinciding with another person who draws attention about how he «resurrected» the account, although «not to fix the problems.» They refer to the difficulties that users face when making transfers to bank accounts. In that sense, they say that banks reject movements that come from the application, suggesting Salvadorans to contact the Chivo Wallet team. There are also those who have difficulty entering the application due to verification problems. And although there are a few who claim that the wallet works without problems, there are more who say they have problems and have decided not to use the wallet. In this way, the majority are dissatisfied with the Chivo Wallet and say that the platform, created by the government in 2021 after the approval of the Bitcoin Law, It has not been a solution for Salvadorans. «The truth is, what is needed is the improvement of the wallet. Correcting errors is key to greater use of the app,» think the user identified as @javixv_. This, while other people continue to complain because they were never able to use the $30 in bitcoin granted during the launch of the state wallet, be it because they couldn't access it or because it was stolen. As BitcoinDynamic reported, reports about the disappearance of money granted through the wallet proliferated throughout 2021 and 2022. During those years, there were frequent reports of cases of identity theft. Even the government of El Salvador was accused of being responsible for the loss of funds. This is because the Chivo Wallet was apparently used to defraud more than USD 12 million, according to a complaint from a Salvadoran NGO. Since that same period of time, Salvadorans have been expressing their displeasure at the difficulties for banks to approve transfers from the Chivo portfolio, also pointing out slowness of points of sale. This is how, since 2023, the lack of government response in making improvements discouraged the use from the portfolio. All this, while many merchants were deactivating the application for their businesses. The irregular situations with the wallet were also part of an investigation carried out by Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a think tank based in the United States that warned about the possible use of Chivo in crimes linked to migrant trafficking. As part of its conclusions, the GFI joins the criticism that has been made of the portfolio, reiterating the problems that many have already denounced in El Salvador in recent years.