Does El Salvador’s Chivo Bitcoin wallet run on Algorand?

[bbc.reporter]

According to this article published in cryptosrus.com, it does. However, there is a disclaimer telling everyone that this article does not claim that the transactions are settled on Algorand or uses wrapped bitcoin. Are they telling everyone that they are not sure in the contents of the article?



Algorand has made Latin America a core region of interest for unleashing blockchain and tokenization. Silvio Micali, the world-renowned Computer Scientist and MIT professor who heads up Algorand, has recently been on a world tour of sorts, meeting with the President of Uruguay and Mayor of Buenos Aires, Argentina, all in the span of a couple of days.

Micali embarked on his visit in order to discuss “the possibilities of applying Algorand’s blockchain technology in different government functionalities.” This would not be the first time Silvio has gone south of the border to strike a deal. We reported in September that El-Salvador selected Algorand to develop the government’s blockchain infrastructure. But I think many people have missed something, and it is worth shedding some light on.

Little do people know that when El-Salvadorians buy a cup of coffee with Bitcoin via the Chivo app, that is being done via Algorand payment rails. There are different parties involved, but Algorand underpins the app. “Athena Bitcoin will provide some front-end services and Chivo’s ATM-related operations, while Algorand will act as the official blockchain provider.”

Read in full https://cryptosrus.com/did-you-know-el-salvadors-chivo-app-runs-on-algorand/


Update.

I was lazy. There are sources in this article that mentions that El Salvador is using Algorand as a provider for the country’s blockchain infrastructure.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitso-to-assist-the-launch-of-el-salvador-s-official-bitcoin-wallet-chivo
https://www.protocol.com/fintech/el-salvador-crypto-economy
https://www.forbes.com/sites/cbovaird/2021/09/10/algorand-has-rallied-600-this-year-what-has-fueled-these-gains/

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[pooya87]

Does El Salvador’s Chivo Bitcoin wallet run on Algorand?

To be honest this whole thing sounds like an advertisement for Algorand!

Bottom line is that if Chivo is using a shitcoin then it is using the most stupid way of transactions. It is like saying Coinbase is using a shittoken to transfer funds between accounts!

They already have a centralized database for people who use their centralized closed source wallet and can use that to transfer funds between accounts for free without needing to use a third database (ie. the shitcoin) that has additional costs.
Any transfer of funds between Chivo and other wallets requires on-chain bitcoin payments so they can't use anything else for that matter anyway.

[dkbit98]

I was lazy. There are sources in this article that mentions that El Salvador is using Algorand as a provider for the country’s blockchain infrastructure.

Do you know what exactly is this ''blockchain infrastructure'' in El Salvador?
If that is Chivo wallet, than it recently showed how good bad it is when people started to lose a lot of money from their accounts, and nobody could find the reason why.
Could it be that one more shitcoin had some ''bug'' in the code that created black hole for money from Chivo wallet owners?
This is just my speculation and it doesn't have to be correct.

[bbc.reporter]

Does El Salvador’s Chivo Bitcoin wallet run on Algorand?

To be honest this whole thing sounds like an advertisement for Algorand!

Bottom line is that if Chivo is using a shitcoin then it is using the most stupid way of transactions. It is like saying Coinbase is using a shittoken to transfer funds between accounts!

They already have a centralized database for people who use their centralized closed source wallet and can use that to transfer funds between accounts for free without needing to use a third database (ie. the shitcoin) that has additional costs.
Any transfer of funds between Chivo and other wallets requires on-chain bitcoin payments so they can't use anything else for that matter anyway.

Agreed. It might be an advertisement for Algorand. However, the question should be is this true? If this is true, the next argument is El Salvador has not adopted bitcoin, it has adopted Algorand because bitcoins are not being used for transactions.

The El Salvadorian president also predicted that there might be 2 more South American countries that will adopt bitcoin. Will those South American countries also use bitcoin through another blockchain? This is not what was larped by the community.

[pushups44]

And if Algorand were somehow used, what's the problem with that? What people use offchain to ultimately confirm transactions onchain should be irrelevant (depending on the preferences of these users). I have no idea if Algorand is used for the Chivo wallet, but if so I see no problem with it. Already, with Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) on Ethereum, we are seeing Ethereum function as a second layer for bitcoin.

[mk4]

And if Algorand were somehow used, what's the problem with that? What people use offchain to ultimately confirm transactions onchain should be irrelevant (depending on the preferences of these users). I have no idea if Algorand is used for the Chivo wallet, but if so I see no problem with it. Already, with Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) on Ethereum, we are seeing Ethereum function as a second layer for bitcoin.

Probably the fact that there could be problems if it's the case that people are actually holding WBTC on the back end, and Algorand/WBTC ends up having critical problems. Likeliness of such scenario is probably very low, but it's something I personally wouldn't ignore.

[pooya87]

Agreed. It might be an advertisement for Algorand. However, the question should be is this true?

If this is not a lie then the only possibility is that the company could have worked for El Salvador either as consultant or as hired developers to help code the wallet and build the infrastructure which had nothing to do with their shitcoin.

If this is true, the next argument is El Salvador has not adopted bitcoin, it has adopted Algorand because bitcoins are not being used for transactions.

Wrong. Even if Chivo is doing such a stupid thing, they still have adopted bitcoin because:
- Bitcoin is considered legal tender in El Salvador not anything else
- The country bought bitcoin and not anything else
- The people received bitcoin (some in their own wallet that is not Chivo) not anything else
- People can withdraw bitcoin from Chivo to any wallet they like
- People pay with bitcoin in the country if anyone is accepting it
- Lightning Network is used for bitcoin transactions in some places and is the target of the main usage not anything else.

Whether internal Chivo to Chivo transactions happen in a stupid way on a shitcoin network doesn't change any of the above facts.

[NeuroticFish]

If this is true, the next argument is El Salvador has not adopted bitcoin, it has adopted Algorand because bitcoins are not being used for transactions.

Wrong. Even if Chivo is doing such a stupid thing, they still have adopted bitcoin because:
[~snip~]
Whether internal Chivo to Chivo transactions happen in a stupid way on a shitcoin network doesn't change any of the above facts.

While your statements stand correct, it may worth also taking into consideration the fact that the vast majority of people don't have enough knowledge, hence will most probably keep using Chivo and it's internal way of settling transactions.
So while nobody is forcing anyone use Algorand, they'll still use it vastly without knowing.

[bbc.reporter]

Agreed. It might be an advertisement for Algorand. However, the question should be is this true?

If this is not a lie then the only possibility is that the company could have worked for El Salvador either as consultant or as hired developers to help code the wallet and build the infrastructure which had nothing to do with their shitcoin.

If this is true, the next argument is El Salvador has not adopted bitcoin, it has adopted Algorand because bitcoins are not being used for transactions.

Wrong. Even if Chivo is doing such a stupid thing, they still have adopted bitcoin because:
- Bitcoin is considered legal tender in El Salvador not anything else
- The country bought bitcoin and not anything else
- The people received bitcoin (some in their own wallet that is not Chivo) not anything else
- People can withdraw bitcoin from Chivo to any wallet they like
- People pay with bitcoin in the country if anyone is accepting it
- Lightning Network is used for bitcoin transactions in some places and is the target of the main usage not anything else.

Whether internal Chivo to Chivo transactions happen in a stupid way on a shitcoin network doesn't change any of the above facts.

However, I shake my head if the country of El Salvador has adopted bitcoin but let their citizens use a custodial wallet that is created on top of an altcoin blockchain that is transacting in tokens. They can force people to transact in anything in there while telling them it is bitcoin hehehe.

Also, where is Jack Mallers? I thought Strike had a partnership with the El Salvadorian government and Strike will be used to power El Salvador’s bitcoin adoption. Jack Mallers cried happy tears on stage about this in Miami.  

[bolawin]

I think El salvador need to reconsider using non custodial wallet such as Muun wallet or something similar, but offcourse theres need to be some kinda protection for people so they not get easily robbed or stolen their private key by hacker or criminal.

How to do it?

[stompix]

Also, where is Jack Mallers? I thought Strike had a partnership with the El Salvadorian government and Strike will be used to power El Salvador’s bitcoin adoption. Jack Mallers cried happy tears on stage about this in Miami.  

The partnership was silently dissolved months ago, Striker thought they could build and run the entire platform then Bukele probably said no and from the full partnership, it ended with consulting. And Chivo was developed and run by a lot of poeple nobody really knows for sure who all are, Koibanx, Bitso (which is funded by Ripple, just to make things spicier.  ) and a lot more.
The whole story is really fishy, I understand that critics would want to pick any small detail and throw it at Bukele but it's a bit concerning how the company that basically runs this is a private company that runs on public funds and has no obligation to publish any financial results.

As for the whole Algorand drama, why is everyone surprised now?
It was known for months, Chivo was going to be a centralized system and all the internal transactions will be offchain, it was debated a hundred times at its launch. and algo doubled in price at that time.

[Wind_FURY]

I made this topic during 2018, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5056991.0

I believe what the government of El Salvador is doing has its equivalent to that standpoint that I was illustrating during that time. Those users will truly learn “not your keys, not your coins” the hard way.

[pooya87]

As for the whole Algorand drama, why is everyone surprised now?
It was known for months, Chivo was going to be a centralized system and all the internal transactions will be offchain, it was debated a hundred times at its launch. and algo doubled in price at that time.

Because it makes no sense.
Transactions happening off-chain is expected, it is essentially like Coinbase accounts as I said above, where they transfer "balance" from one account to another.
But transactions happening on an altcoin's chain makes no sense at all. There is also no indication of it either, the article is fishy which is why I suspect it is an ad for this altcoin.

[leea-1334]

Too technical for me to understand but I always thought if you use Bitcoin, then you use Bitcoin. OR nowadays do companies build applications on another blockchain and then use it to connect with BTC? What would the purpose of that be? There is already Lightning for offchain purpose settlements right?

I am totally confused here.

[stompix]

Because it makes no sense.

Becoming a mining hub when you're a net importer of energy doesn't make sense either, digging a 200MW well unique in the world in 3 months makes no sense either, having that new facility for mining and doing the mining at the old one makes no sense, issuing 1 billion in bonds out of which you will spend 500m to build a city that will cost 17 billion or half the GDP of the country makes no sense either.
But if those are said with laser eyes poeple who want to believe will believe everything.

Of course, everything would be cleared up with a bit of transparency but...who are you going to ask for that?  

Koibanx is the official partner in this project, here is a word from them: (google translate)

“El Salvador is paving the way for other countries to make the promise of blockchain a reality. We are honored to work with the government to enable Salvadorans to access a global digital economy and the potential for a more prosperous future,” said Leo Elduayen, CEO & Co Founder of Koibanx. “To make this possible, we needed technology that was robust enough to handle the needs of an entire nation. We discovered that in Algorand, a proven blockchain that meets our rigorous requirements for speed, security, and stability.”

So, as I said to poeple months ago, you might not like it but that doesn't change a thing, learn to deal with it.

[bbc.reporter]

Too technical for me to understand but I always thought if you use Bitcoin, then you use Bitcoin. OR nowadays do companies build applications on another blockchain and then use it to connect with BTC? What would the purpose of that be? There is already Lightning for offchain purpose settlements right?

I am totally confused here.

Ths is not very technical. What the government of El Salvador did was they are holding everyone’s bitcoin in their own wallet and issued bitcoin tokens to their citizens through a smart contract in Algorand blockchain. What the El Salvadorian government can also do is fractionalize and issue more bitcoin tokens than how much they hold in their wallet. It is very head shaking and very amusing to call this adoption.

[Darker45]

There were articles about this as early as the third quarter of last year but perhaps they were not given attention to because of the noise and the hype the announcement created. Details were overlooked because all focus was directed to the declaration of Bitcoin as a legal tender.

There were celebrations. Bitcoin supporters were rather focusing on the counting of the Chivo wallet downloads, Bitcoin ATM queues, and so on. People no longer cared with what's behind the development. Little did they know that at the backbone of the adoption was an altcoin, a bank, and a few more centralized financial and security companies.

[pooya87]

It is pretty easy to verify actually.
The shitcoin in question here has a blockchain and a couple of online block explorers. All you have to do is point out the corresponding transactions on Algorand with proof that the bitcoin transactions in Chivo correspond to those transactions.

Until then I stand on my initial judgement and avoid any different conclusion.