Buoyant Bukele Blasts Critics as Bitcoin Price Booms and Salvadorans Buy BTC
The El Salvador President Nayib Bukele appears to be in a triumphant mood as global bitcoin (BTC) prices rise, claiming that citizens are going on a BTC buying spree and lashing out at opponents – but reports of bugs and unresolved issues connected to the Chivo wallet continue to circulate.
Bukele claims that some USD 2m was now being remitted through the Chivo platform per day, and that bitcoin buys were on the march.
Since yesterday, Salvadorans are inserting more cash (to buy #bitcoin) than what they are withdrawing from the @chivowallet ATMs.
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) October 7, 2021
And if we add remittances (almost $2 million per day), the incoming USD QUADRUPLES the outflow.
This is very surprising so early in the game.
As BTC prices edged toward the USD 55,000 mark, he also took the time to hit out at his critics in the media and in the political world, many of whom had been at their most vocal in the days following the adoption of the bitcoin law last month, when BTC prices slumped.
He wrote:
“Have you noticed how quiet the opposition has become? They would be jumping for joy […] if bitcoin had gone down. It is clear and beyond any possible doubt that they want the worst for our country and our people. They are not even interested in hiding it anymore.”
Bukele also retweeted a post in a similar vein from one of his supporters, who claimed:
“If they had spent the money they did on making ‘No to Bitcoin’ t-shirts to buy bitcoin, they would be richer now.”
Bukele will likely claim that his decision to “buy the dip” back in late September already appears to have paid off. But it was not all sunshine and rainbows for the President.
Users continued to state that they are having problems with the Chivo app, with one replying directly to Bukele’s tweet, claiming that Chivo support staff had “not offered a prompt resolution” to a problem they had reported.
And one of the media outlets opposed to Bukele and his bitcoin plans, the newspaper El Diario de Hoy, reported that more users’ Chivo problems and complaints are going unanswered.
The newspaper carried testimony from one user who claimed she had not received a remittance through the app sent on October 4 – and was desperately in need of the funds to “buy medicine.”
Another claimed to have lost over USD 800 due to “glitches” in the app, and had been waiting almost two weeks for his issue to be resolved.
The media outlet quoted Carlos Palomo, an expert in computer systems and the President of a body named Transparency, Social Comptroller and Open Data Association (Tracoda), as stating that “mostly business owners” had encountered issues with Chivo and had experienced “losses of between USD 100 and USD 150” due to “technical problems on the platform.”
He added that staff at the Chivo app call center had admitted in some instances that “they didn’t know what was going on.”
Palomo concluded that it was likely Chivo support staff “do not have adequate training.”
At 08:11 UTC, BTC is trading at USD 54,746. It’s up almost 7% in a day and 32% in a week.
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Learn more:
– Bitcoin Breaks USD 55K Resistance, Returns to USD 1 Trillion Market Cap
– Academic Says Bukele’s Bitcoin Mining Test Is ‘Bad Business’
– Angry Bukele: No Salaries or Pensions Will Be Paid in BTC, Critics are Lying
– El Salvador Gov’t to Mitigate Against Fuel Price Crisis – Using its Bitcoin App
– ‘Dictator’ Bukele ‘Buys the Bitcoin Dip’ as 1.1M Users Flock to Chivo Wallet
– What Are Salvadorans Doing with their USD 30 Bitcoin Giveaways?
