Douglas Rodríguez, president of the El Salvador central bank stated that $52 million of remittances has been processed by national digital wallet service Chivo through the first five months of the year. This marks a 3.9%, $118 million increase in value when compared to the same period in 2021.
Chivo was launched in September 2021 as the Central American country became the first in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. The launch of the app reportedly attracted more than 2 million users in less than a month, leading to major teething problems for the state-endorsed payment platform.
The government-sanctioned payment service provider was relaunched in February this year, required by the onboarding of an estimated 4 million users looking to make use of low fees for payments and transfers made in BTC. American cryptocurrency exchange software firm AlphaPoint came onboard to address scaling and stability issues.
Chivo offers users commission-free transfers and payments in BTC and U.S. dollars. El Salvador’s president and Bitcoin proponent Nayib Bukele has previously claimed the app will save citizens some $400 million in annual commissions spent using conventional remittance and payment service providers in the country.
