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Chivo Wallet Disabled as People in El Salvador Rush to Use Bitcoin

Newsweek 9/7/2021 Anders Anglesey

A stock photo of the bitcoin symbol. An Ohio man who operated a cryptocurrency laundering service has pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy charges in federal court.

El Salvador has disabled its Bitcoin transaction app "Chivo," just hours after the country became the first in the world to approve the cryptocurrency as legal tender.

The Bitcoin wallet app Chivo was disconnected in order to "increase the capacity" of its servers, with Salvadorians racing to use the app for the first time on Tuesday.

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele announced servers would be down until the issue with capacity had been properly corrected.

In a tweet translated into English via Google, Bukele said: "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."

Por unos momentos no funcionará @chivowallet, la hemos desconectado mientras aumentamos la capacidad de los servidores de captación de imágenes.
Los problemas de instalación que tuvieron algunas personas fueron por esa razón.
Preferimos corregirlo antes de volver a conectarla.
— Nayib Bukele 🇸🇻 (@nayibbukele) September 7, 2021