Bitcoin Forum

The President of El Salvador started the campaign to popularize BTC to the people of this country by giving away $ 30 BTC each.
This is an important and meaningful effort to promote widespread recognition from people to businesses. Utilities when using BTC are that you can use them easily, trade without borders and without internet.
El Savador pioneering BTC legalization will be a test for other countries to figure out how to move the economy so that it is compatible with the utilities that cryptocurrency offers!
Wait and see!
https://i.ibb.co/fqHC0RT/603-E5-D91-EA90-4-BE8-AC85-DD3-F7-D0-AC27-A.jpg (https://ibb.co/tQDbCf1)

This is very extraordinary news, at a time when the price of bitcoin is falling, and the Chinese state is against bitcoin mining, El Salvador has come up with a new step, to introduce bitcoin to its people, this is the first step, and can be said to be a profitable project in the future. ..

Exactly and they are taking care that they will have the public to their side on this by making it a televised appearance. Forget China, many countries will soon follow El Salvador in this campaign and we will eventually replace their output sooner than later.

The president of El Salvador might have ulterior motives behind promoting BTC in this manner, but I still appreciate the fact that he is trying to help improve BTC adoption rates without caring about external factors.

Am confident that more and more countries will embrace BTC and other popular cryptocurrencies over time in this manner.

This is really a good start for them. This will definitely help more people have interest in using Bitcoin. They don't get any support from the IMF and the World Bank. It's very important for them to draw the people's attention to use Bitcoin. If they don't benefit from their decision to make it legal tender, they may not accept Bitcoin like this for a long time.

That's almost 3500 BTC to giveaway. Biggest giveaway + ever first by a government. That sounds pretty cool. This is certainly a big step. El Salvador have 6.45 million people out of whom, there should be at least 4 million getting the airdrop (giveaway). That's pretty big move.
Also, wondering how much of it will get out of the circulation.

And for those expecting that buying this amount will increase the price significantly.. well, it won't.


Yep, I wish to believe that they'll start a trend with their moves.


Not much, probably. The recipients don't really afford to lose any money they get and the infrastructure is at hand.

The best part is that El Salvador does not have its own currency. It has dollar and now bitcoin. Means that those 30$ does not comes from inflation. Its hard money right from taxes into bitcoin. 30$ times 6 mln citizens - 180 mln $ worth of bitcoins.

"A person working in El Salvador typically earns around 1,710 USD per month. Salaries range from 430 USD (lowest average) to 7,610 USD (highest average, actual maximum salary is higher)."
http://www.salaryexplorer.com/salary-survey.php?loc=65&loctype=1

Means that 30$ is even 3 days of working. I doubt that they will not take it if it will be 5 min of downloading an app.

https://twitter.com/DocumentingBTC/status/1406664487126642695
"20,000 people in El Salvador 🇸🇻 recently transacted on the #Bitcoin Lightning Network, using the
@Bitcoinbeach
 wallet.
All together, their total fees were $4.98. Yes, 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗼𝗴𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿."

Bukele is really an extraordinary president. make you think why there are media depicting him being a dictator when he is making all this transparent money.


this is like their helicopter money for the people. nice initiative, of course there will be lots who will signup for this Strike app to receive the $30. it's going to be a massive adoption for all the el Salvadorans.

That's great initiative but first of all I think it's not safe enough to keep those $30 bitcoins on the wallet made by a government and better to transfer it. And secondly adopting bitcoin legally is not enough, there must be financial institutions and services that will allow to use this asset as any other currencies. Moreover, I've heard there are some disagreements between Salvador and IMF and World Bank

The catch is that the 30$ worth of bitcoin is given for those that download Chivo, an app provided by the Government to manage crypto (from September 2021 onwards). Fine it’s a way to kick-start things into motion, but I’d rather it be a wallet of free choice.

Skimming through the below link with information on Chivo, it states that:
-   Users need to register with their Id and phone number.
-   They’ll also need to perform a facial recognition or to complete a phone questionnaire from a given call center.
   
Seems like starting with a big brother wallet ...

See (in Spanish):
https://elsalvadorgram.com/2021/06/asi-es-chivo-la-wallet-oficial-del-gobierno-para-transacciones-en-bitcoin/
https://twitter.com/chivowallet (no content here yet really).

Do you think the government would give $30 to someone and then for some strange reason take that same money back? It seems to me that the president has no ill intentions other than to want to promote Bitcoin among the general population - and is there a better way than to give them gifts that they can spend however they want?

If there is distrust in the government that organizes all this, then the project would be doomed even before it started - and we come to the point that the government has taken the first step, and now it is up to ordinary people to decide whether to accept Bitcoin or not.

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Free choice is always desirable, but the government wants to have as few problems as possible when it comes to technical support - because it's easier when you have one crypto wallet than a dozen different ones, each of which can have some specific problems.

Actually this was the bit that made everything easier. If they would have had their own currency, the president would have faced the inertia (to be nice) and the "advises" of the central bankers.


Well, this is govt does best: get user data.
On the other hand, I guess that's necessary, else they can easily end up giving out the money to the "wrong people".

Government is going to give away $30 for people who uses the wallet they mentioned which means they have chance to track the wallet further once they know the end user. Anyway this is good thing that it is going to be accepted as legal tender but the real reason behind this adoption can be found in the future.

Of cause there is always going to be disagreements between IMF, the world Bank and any Nation when it comes to issues like this relating to Finance because they know this is how Nations break away from the shackles of continuous enslavement they put most of this poor nations through. They would like to have them keep borrowing and owning the IMF/World Bank but El Salvador is breaking that jinx.
I believe the President is determined and I know he will definitely sort the advise of experts on this and I hope this works and servers as learning steps for other nations.

This is a simple way to promote BTC as their legal tender, but there's something that disturb me a little bit. Is the El Savador government has ruled about the transaction with small scale, because as long as I know the transaction fee is quite expensive for low middle class community. Whether in the country, transaction fee is cheaper that another country?

El Salvador is trying to be the destination of bitcoiners. Due to many reasons some governments are trying to suspend any cryptocurrency activity such as trading, mining and even investing and the people who mine bitcoin are moving out of their countries and China is one of them. By moving people out of their countries a huge amount of money will also move out and the other countries such as El Salvador will try to attack people to migrate there and safely do their job without of any problem, by doing so a huge amount of  money will also enter this country. However, we will see what we can do with 30bucks on El Salvador, maybe just a glass on wine.

What if they actually plan to send the derivatives instead of actual bitcoin, and that's why they are making this Chivo app mandatory in order for people to get BTC? I mean, if they really have no ill intentions, they would just let people get their BTC in any wallet of their choice.



That's true, another part that sucks, but I see no other way to perform this type of airdrop, otherwise they open themselves for abuse.


I would like to look at the positive aspects of all this, but it reminds me of that saying that if you are getting something for free, you are the product.

If people want to throw away their identity documents, privacy and anonymity, go ahead with government-managed giveaway. I see many people don't see problems with that.

It is common to force people to do KYC in order to claim airdrops, from Coinbase ie. so locals in El Salvador will most likely not see personal problems with KYC.

If they care about anonymity, they should spend their $30 giveaway for one or two expense and let that bitcoin wallet go. If they want to do other bitcoin transactions, do it with other purely new wallets.

Also $30 in Bitcoin can bring problems when transaction fees are too expensive and if people can not use LN. If they want to use that $30 Bitcoin giveaway, they need to have plan when fee is cheap.

Is it a good time to read the topic from @1miau?

• Why KYC is extremely dangerous – and useless (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5221497.0)

Regardless of the catch which the government will ask KYC through that Chivo wallet sponsored by the government, people will take the BTC specially now that its free. There really is an intention, it could be for the re-election? 😁

It's $30. No one will give you that money while watching youtube the whole day.

For a head of state to advocate for crypto says alot...it could me the population is of a young generation so technology is not an issue which includes bitcoin, this could also be the opening of its doors for any crypto business to everyone of us,  perhaps miners too ::)

This still remains one of the biggest positive crypto news we have received in a while and looking forward for more 😀.

Cool! So, the fees killed my btc, and all I got was this cup of coffee meme, has it started trending yet? Has it taken off on tiktok yet?

Best faucet so far, unfortunatelly only disponible for salvadorans citizens. ;D
Let's see how people in general will react towards this incentive by the government. I think they are just going to cashout the btc into fiat and add the sum to their traditional bank accounts, what is pointless after all. A good campaign would be to incentive entrepreneurs to pay employees in btc and their businesses accept payments in btc also, especially those who are focused on internet niche, like shopping sites, for an example.

I really fear bitcoin adoption isn't going to happen just because the government is going to distribute 30$ to people who have never heard of this before.

This is what I'm exactly reading right now from the article that can be found on coinmarketcap. (https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/30-reward-for-every-el-salvador-adult-who-downloads-government-crypto-wallet)
It is for everyone that will download their country's wallet and there's an airdrop for everyone! and the airdrop is in BTC. $30 is already a good amount as free money and what if those folks understand the power of holding. This is really a great initiative by the El Salvador's government and what if Bulgaria does the same as they're one of the countries known as one of the biggest holders.

El Savador President just write the county name in book of history, to be the first country to host Bitcoin airdrop and thats if they indeed do the $30 worth of Bitcoin giveaway when it September. I hope this wont hurt the country pocket though.
However, this will only create surge in price of the market for sometime cause we seem to be heading to the market correction stage.

I agree OP. Chivo Wallet will be available in September when El Salvador's Bitcoin law takes effect. The Bitcoin airdrop is like a form of Marketing campaign to promote the wallet and for Salvadoran citizens to become familiar with the app. It is incredible how President Nayib Bukele has found things to think about bitcoin for his country.

Take a look at this Tweet, he created this tweet on July 7, 2017 mentioning the Central Bank of El Salvador


If you want to know any update of Chivo Wallet. Here you have its Twitter account

https://twitter.com/chivowallet?s=09 (https://twitter.com/chivowallet?s=09)

it's not yet happening because the wallet will only be available in September which I guess the airdrop is nothing but just an announcement?

according to a coindesk podcast, the airdrop isn't just for the Chivo government back wallet but for all wallets. strike wallet is very popular there so i guess this is easier for the government to promote the use of BTC if they don't ask all to download Chivo.

now El Salvador has become a bigger country than china...

supporting Bitcoin means supporting the future, imagine how many million people will prosper from Bitcoin, Bitcoin has changed the future of millions of El Salvadorans.

They will probably KYC to give the 30 bucks otherwise the same guy can re queue for the money. The free money will help accelerate the adoption of cryptocurrencies and give the kick the users need to start using it.
I really do not see a problem with what el salvador is doing, in fact it is great news for the crypto community...
IMF basically asked them to cancel their pro btc stance after they made it legal and they come out with this news...
It costs el salvador real money to distribute btc, they will have to give up cold hard cash for this.

They will get alota benefits though... After the users are kyced they can use the system to distribute money in the future as well, saving them alot of banking fees.
There will be heavy risks that will follow, hopefully they are prepared...
Id say everyone needs to support el salvador's steps instead of looking at the glass half full, i am eagerly waiting for their mining operations to start so i can do something there!

I see several problems with this:

• It's not "giving away" money when it comes from taxes. People basically get a fraction of their own money back.
• They use $30 instead of 0.0009551 BTC or 95510 sat
• Citizens are required to install a wallet provided by the government
• Apart from the privacy concerns, it wouldn't surprise me if there are security problems in their newly created wallet app

But what really worries me is this:
I expect some form of fractional reserve Bitcoin.

I can't find much about the wallet:
Considering how high on-chain fees can get, I don't think they'll use on-chain transactions. The next best thing would be using the Bitcoin Lightning Network (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5345664.0). But I kinda expect they'll create their own centrally controlled "Bitcoin" that can only be used within their government approved app. So you can send it to other people in El Salvador, but you can't send it to any other wallet. That means you can't send it abroad, and it also means the government doesn't have to buy thousands of Bitcoins to distribute to their citizens. If they create a special permission to withdraw on-chain to another wallet, they'll only need a much smaller amount for those on-chain settlements.

The more I read about this, the more I think they only use the name Bitcoin, but not actual Bitcoins.

One example of the adoption of Bitcoin that is actually carried out in a country with the full support of the head of government. Elsavador will not only adopt but will develop the potential possessed by bitcoin. Starting a campaign by giving away $30 in Bitcoin will certainly make the Elsavador Community learn how to use Bitcoin and learn what its advantages and disadvantages are.
this is one form of example to lift the economy in the country with a more modern platform.

We know that who takes the first attitude has a very very big chance to be among the top world leaderships that will get in to History!

This action managed by this predictor guy isn't a simple political movement but a drastic modification in its national economy and an alert in a form of hint to the other countries which now have alredy becoming out of the game.

From now on the nation that does not choose to change will creat a gap in its economic resume. The time is very important at this moment cause it'll be directly proportional to the future benefits for a nation!

Fantastic "test"! Fantastic experience with a 99.9% positive result, safe and sound!

This will surely make a huge impact on how the world view bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. It will make a good impression if ever El Salvador's decision caused them to improve their economy. Nevertheless, if ever it flops, surely bitcoin will have a bad reputation and will cause a sudden fall in bitcoin's value. Now that it has been done within a nation and this time it's for real, let us hope that everything would work well because it will help us progress more on making bitcoin as a official currency in the making.

Haha yeah, that's common misconception about government giving something for "free".



Pretty much this. At first this news sounds great, but when you dig deeper, it more looks like a publicity stunt than something legit and with honest intentions. There are still many questions unanswered but once that wallet is out we will know what's actually going on.

From rhe information provided here of the need for a KYC and then, a government managed wallet in this case,

In the Open;
It is a deliberate effort but the government to ensure the giveaway isn't over utilised or should i say, the citizens especially those in charge of the giveaway doesn't cheat the system. It would help them keep a close check on the fact that, each citizen gets his or her quota once and for all.

In the Hidden;
It could be another way to ensuring that the bitcoin owned by any citizen that uses the Chivo wallet is taxed. Either receiving or sending.
Again, it could be a campaign  in progress for a re-election into office. Politics never ceases.

Fractional Bitcoin :D Now combine that with this (https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/el-salvador/safety-and-security):

And for the Bitcoin whales who thought this will be a good destination to spend their Bitcoins or even move to:

And a last bit of advice (https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/el-salvador/safety-and-security):
I'll stay away for now.

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On second thought: They may actually get away with fractional Bitcoin. If the government tells them it has value, it could just work within the country. That's how we went from gold to paper to digits on a screen over the centuries, and it could just work here too. It won't be Bitcoin, but they can still accept it as a payment.

I am surprised that the Salvadoran government is forcing adoption in the way that they are (all merchants have to accept bitcoin as well as the USD). There will be hurdles of forcing this kind of adoption but it will bring BTC adoption to millions of people who wouldn't otherwise get into the space.

Well, that a big social experiment over the whole country has begun and it is unclear how it will end. I think we should be patient and stock up on popcorn, as the spectacle and events will be (I'm sure) very interesting. It is especially interesting what will happen if this whole venture turns out to be effective and generates a wave of similar decisions in Latin America - what will happen then to the dollars and the system of finance that exists? I am sure this will be the beginning of a large-scale crisis.

Bukele has been Tweeting on some misinformation regarding the bitcoin law, so far having stated the following comments (which I’ve translated from here: https://twitter.com/nayibbukele/status/1409584377915269120):

1. The Government wallet is only one of many that can be used.

2. @chivowallet will be totally compatible with other wallets.

3. Personal data required by the wallet (Chivo I presume) are already in the Government’s possession. The DUI (Id card) has the photo, complete name, age, address, telephone, height, fingerprints, etc.

4. The use of @chivowallet will have no cost, no commissions will apply when sending or receiving remittances, nor when converting bitcoin to dollar or vice-versa.

Businesses (shops and such) will not be charged a commission, as credit cards do.

5. The money that one has or receives (in dollars or bitcoins) in the @chivowallet may be withdrawn in cash (in dollars) whenever one wishes to.

This may be done in the physical Chivo branches, or using Chivo ATMs.

This will not incur in any commission.

6. There will be over 200 Chivo places (counting both ATMs and branches) in historical centres and commercial centres, where one will be able to withdraw cash from the @chivowallet.

One will also be able to make deposits there, purchase #bitcoin, and use other services.
All this without any commission.

7. Conversion between dollars and #bitcoin, or from #bitcoin to dollars is free, and can be done at any time from the @chivowallet, at market price at that point in time.

This is also without any commission.

It is not mandatory to make any conversion if one does not wish to do so.

8. The only #bitcoins that cannot be converted are the 30$ in bitcoin that the government will give out.
These may only be spent.

Why?
Because the purpose of these 30$ in #bitcoin is not to give away money, but rather to incentivize the use of bitcoin and the @chivowallet.

9. Once these 30$ in #bitcoin are spent, they’ll enter the normal system and from there on may be kept in #bitcoin, converted to dollars, and/or be withdrawn from any Chivo point (of interaction), which will be distributed all over our country.

The above does still requires the use of Chivo in order to receive the 30$ in bitcoin, but some clarifications were made to debunk some wrong information that stated to circulate in the country. Clarification number 8 is an interesting one , plus those that verse and reiterate on the lack of some comissions, which we'd still need to see alongside the countervalues being used during conversions and cashouts.

Edit: Pretty long video (1h in Spanish) on the matter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYXTuWcltBs

It sounded really good until I reached point 8:

But if you can send it to another wallet, isn't that the same as spending it?

Point 8 makes it feel like it's some sort of gift certificate. I always try to get rid of those, because it limits my flexibility. If I'd get $30 in Bitcoin, I'm okay with that. But if it's "Bitcoin" with certain limitations, I'd rather get rid of it as quickly as possible.

As far as I can read into it, the idea is to avoid people making a quick cash-out in USD, so the app makes these airdropped 30$ in BTC non-convertible to USD, within the scope of the functionality provided by Chivo. One could, as you say, send it to another wallet and do whatever he wishes from there on.

I figure the ruling hypothesis is that most people will stick to using Chivo, at least for a while, and incentivating them to use these 30$ of BTC (as opposed to cashing it out), even if it by sending it to another wallet, getting the BTC ball into circulation. The expectancy nevertheless, I figure, is that people get to use it in some sort of everyday life commercial TX.

That's the thing: if it's "limited" money, I would want to get rid of it. But if it's "normal" money that I can use however I please, I'd treat it like normal money. Too bad it takes them so long to get their wallet working, I'm very eager to see what's going to happen.
Sending a small amount of Bitcoin to a normal on-chain wallet sounds terrible for fees though, and if a few million people are going to do that in a small amount of times, fees might go up a lot.

I assume Chivo is custodial, so there's a "restore" option if people lose it. If this many people would suddenly have to be their own bank, they're going to need the time until September to educate them on wallet backups.

They still have to.

But getting a license, it won't be too hard anymore with their government since it's the main reason why they've adopted bitcoin as a legal tender.

To attract businesses like exchanges to operate into their jurisdiction.

The country has been making everything happen in a short time period. Earlier there is no news about El Salvador and something relative to cryptocurrency. All of the sudden months back talks came about the adoption. Now they are with plans of turning the country to be the centre for fintech. Now the campaign to promote usage of bitcoin with the few dollars of free money to give a try is really a best way for adoption and to make people get used to it.

Wow I didn't know that was the number but it kinda makes sense with the 35$ and their population, probably not all of their people are gonna received the 35$ but its sure is a big amount of bitcoin to giveaway.

I think this is a good move for the country, but one problem I can see here is if bitcoin has a high fee of course most people will not use it for sure because it just not gonna make sense and if your practical your going to use the currency that is more reliable so probably their fiat currency.

But I guess this campaign will be a lot of help since they could now start, and when that happened maybe they were also going to see the beauty of how bitcoin works and its profit.

for the common people this step from El salvador is something very good, but at the same time it is something very bad for the scammers and some people who own exchanges and wallets and other sites related to cryptocurrencies because I think exchanges, wallets and processors of payments, online casinos will have to be licensed and assume some terms and conditions imposed by the government of El Salvador and in this process I doubt that the owners of things related to cryptomeadas will handle the whole process with their anonymous names. for example: I think exchange owners will have to give documents in El salvador to have the license and of course they will have to show real names

It is obvious he is thinking long term, just as bitcoin has a first-mover advantage he is trying to get the same for his country and I do not see anything wrong with this, if anything since he is the president he is in fact mandated to take the best decisions he can for his citizens and I think he is doing exactly that.

Bitcoin related businesses will see this and will decide to move to El Salvador bringing with them a lot of money to the country, the only thing missing is that the president declares that El Salvador will begin to buy bitcoin as a reserve currency for this to become a dream come true.

Government of EI Salvador already declared that every adults citizen can get $30 worth of Bitcoin of they download a Bitcoin wallet that is support by EI Salvador governments. I think good sign of Bitcoin acceptance.

elsalvador is the first country he started early in seizing this opportunity, so of course in the future he will benefit. just imagine if every citizen has bitcoin, and in the end bitcoin soars, then prosperity is inevitable. and after that usually other countries will imitate it. therefore it is good news to invest in bitcoin