Today on September 7, the Bitcoin law officially came into effect in El Salvador. But the event didn’t go as smoothly as expected.
Three months after the government passed the bill, El Salvador is making history regarding digital currencies. President Nayib Bukele announced in a tweet on Monday the purchase of the country’s first 200 bitcoin tokens.
“El Salvador has just bought it’s first 200 coins. Our brokers will be buying a lot more as the deadline approaches.”
The purchase is part of the $150 million Bitcoin fund that the government passed last week. The amount will help to build the necessary infrastructure across all of El Salvador. The Bitcoin Trust will also simplify the conversion of BTC into U.S. dollars, facilitating the widespread adoption of virtual currency.
The $150 million will be cut from the $500 million loan granted from the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI). El Salvador was given the amount as a helping hand for small and medium enterprises during the economic crisis the world is experiencing because of the pandemic.
But what did not go as planned?
Chivo, the wallet launched by the government of El Salvador, encountered several technical issues. Because of a bunch of server errors, the digital wallet had to be disconnected, as the president announced.
“For a few moments, it won’t work @chivowallet we have disconnected it while increasing the capacity of the image capture servers. The installation problems that some people had were for that reason. We prefer to correct it before reconnecting it.”
Bitso, a Mexican cryptocurrency exchange, will be the crypto service provider for El Salvador’s official digital wallet, Chivo. The exchange platform will assist in launching the state-supported wallet alongside other companies.
“The Salvadoran government has created strategic partnerships to ensure that convertibility is undergone at the most competitive prices possible, and users will not have to be faced with covering any costs.”
