Based on the opinion polls done by different organisations with the sample around 1500 people on different timeline through this year, it had favoured Nayib Bukele to be the next President. We don't know how the outcome could change in real-time polling. For now his popularity haven't declined. Chivo wallet is developed by the government and for better understanding this could've been suggested by the government. This doesn't mean people couldn't use any other wallets. It depends upon the knowledge the people have over cryptocurrency. The wallet can't be directly connected to the development stagnation or keeping track of users transaction.
First Chivo was developed with Algorand infrastructure, I recommend you give this thread a read
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.58956953To continue, I remind you that every Salvadoran is forced to do the kyc to use the Chivo wallet, therefore it is automatically associated with an ID that keeps track of every movement of that wallet. Among other things, it has been ascertained that the bitcoins are transacted from the Chivo wallets and then subsequently credited to one's own, provided that one can speak of "holding" because in reality the private keys are not provided.
Instead as you say, it is true that other wallets could be used such as electrum but unfortunately there is a lack of education especially in a country like El Salvador where the majority is made up of illiterates, and which Bukele knew very well how to maneuver with the initial 20 dollar drop .
Why do you sound so angry in regards to the Chivo wallet matter mendace? Yes.. sure it is a government controlled wallet, and sure people should attempt to know the difference between any kind of wallet that is government controlled and various other bitcoin options, just as they should realize differences between holding their value inside of various custodial solutions (whether government sponsored or some other kind of third party, such as a financial institution).
Yes, some people do not know about these matters, but they are being precluded from either finding out "what's up" or even paying attention, when the government itself is telling them that they do not need to use the Chivo wallet.
I doubt that the El Salvadorean govt is being as disingenuine as you are attempting to argue and surely losing credibility if the facts do not really back up what you are saying in terms of what governments do..
versus giving options to people that they would not otherwise have, which is to freely use (transact in, store or otherwise use) bitcoin without fear of prosecution or persecution, as is the case in some other places in which the legal status is way less clear.
If you had not noticed, El Salvador is in fact the only government in the world that has both gone as far as it has to legalize bitcoin in terms of categorizing it as legal tender, and they do not even appear to be devolving into shitcoinery, yet..... so yeah, sure there can be some reasonable assertions that the Chivo wallet was not a very good product, but it did seem to be promoted as a way to incentivize all qualified citizens to claim $30 of bitcoin (or was it $30 in dollars in order to download the Chivo Wallet? I don't know and it really does not matter too much regarding the points that I am making) , and yeah, maybe it would have been better for individual citizens to refrain from collecting their $30 or maybe just collect their $30 and then use other forms of bitcoin or lighting network wallets? Individuals have to weigh for themselves about what option that they want to employ, and the mere fact that they may well be "illiterate" as you claim, does not either resolve them from responsibility or automatically support your largely nonsensical claim that they were being taken advantage of... nonsense.
Although it is sometimes quite the hassle to read your entire posts JayJuanGee
, I usually take the time to do it and in most cases I find something that is valuable and sticks out from the rest (in my opinion).
"Giving
options to people that they would not otherwise have"
This is how I understood the approach in El Salvador as well. Nobody has to use that stuff, but everybody can. @mendace I would understand the point you make when there was no "option", but a mandatory action to be taken by El Salvador citizens.
When a CBDC will be introduced, that thing is most likely not going to be an option and it also probably won't allow you to transfer any of your CBDC out of the network such that you can use your CBDC as you wish, let alone anonymously.
It is obvious why they asked for people to go through KYC. If there is a financial incentive involved, KYC is essentially a must as otherwise some people would claim it multiple times. Yes there are possibilities to somehow airdrop it and provide addresses such that privacy is retained, but I guess that everybody would argue anyway that the government knows who belongs to which address. I understood this El Salvadorian approach really as one where they wanted to get the masses involved, allow them to familiarize themselves with the technology with a not too small amount and without the fear to do something wrong and risk money that they couldn't afford to lose. This way they could play around because it was money they never owned anyway.
It was a boostrapping attempt because making Bitcoin legal tender but not having a kind of critical mass using it severely undermines the chances of success for the entire project.
I would be more careful when one day Facebook offers you to use their digital currency than when the El Salvador government wants to hand out §30 in Bitcoin for free while having made Bitcoin legal tender. El Salvador made step 1 before step 2. If the decentralized currency Bitcoin wasn't legal tender in El Salvador, I would rather agree with you and recommend people to be more careful about their decision. But in this case the government is sitting in the same boat as their people.
