Hundreds of El Salvador citizens have inexplicably lost bitcoins stored in the state-owned crypto wallet Chivo. After the country adopted Bitcoin as a legal tender, hundreds of citizens purport that their coins are missing from these wallets.
A Twitter user ‘El Comisionado’, documented at least 50 such cases, totaling more than $96,220 saying:
“The government does not admit mistakes and is silent. But this is one of the things that people demand an answer to. Some have been waiting for months to get their money back.”
Después de documentar 50 casos de estafa de la @chivowallet el monto es de $96,223.83
Solamente en estos casos. https://t.co/sVfFwrNGyR
— El Comisionado (@_elcomisionado_) December 20, 2021
The issue was confirmed by the El Salvador police. Another El Salvador citizen and bitcoin enthusiast Rogzy stated:
“I don’t think Chivo is safe and no one can verify it because the application code is not open source. Few people use the wallet, because most don’t know how it works.”
Previously, President Nayib Bukele said that Chivo has reached over 2.1 million users compared to the nation’s total population of around 6.5 million. He has also previously acknowledged the technical challenges that come with the Chivo wallet. However, his administration cannot tackle and resolve this issue for the El Salvador citizens.
This issue came up for the first time in October when the citizens complained that scammers are stealing and using their personal data to install the Chivo wallet to get a $30 bonus in bitcoins from the state.
Most of the people complained that their identity documents have already been used to install the Chivo wallet without their knowledge. Thieves and scammers attempted to get $30 in BTC that the El Salvadorian government distributed to all the citizens who registered the Chivo wallet for the first time.
Users are now afraid that in case hackers manage to steal their personal data, they can use their private information to commit other crimes including money laundering. Recently, El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele confirmed some plans to create a ‘Bitcoin City’ at the base of the Conchagua volcano on the nation’s eastern coast.
Although the adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender seems to have brought a lot of challenges to El Salvador, proponents are convinced that more nations will follow in President Bukele’s footsteps.
