So in the roll out, they seem to have lots of server issues with Chivo wallet. That combined with the need to have your identity associated with the wallet, and a possible requirement for businesses to use Chivo makes me think there might be something dangerous here.
It sounds like Chivo is a centrally managed wallet, meaning the El Salvador govt is holding everyone's bitcoins that are using the wallet, and with the identity thing, they are able to track all of the transactions between people.
Yep, you can pay bitcoins into the wallet from other bitcoin apps, and supposedly for the free $30 you get to start, it is reported that after it is transferred a few times, it is allowed to leave the network.
I feel this is just asking for a Mt Gox style event to happen, but on a much much bigger scale. An entire nation's money is being controlled by the central govt. When you look at your phone and see you have 2 BTC on there... is it really there? What if the central server gets hacked? What if the govt needs to raise money to fight a war, save the poor, or fight covid? Can it just dip in there, spending the bitcoins to do it, but not subtracting it from accounts, basically doubling the money.
I am all for this great promise of a bitcoin currency, but with the principles that back up bitcoin, most notably not relying on a central authority. To me it looks like El Salvador govt is getting the benefit of accumulating on the back of the citizens, while creating a parallel fake bitcoin currency that people use to get more bitcoins into the system.
If you don't control the money, then it isn't your money.
Note: this is all based on what I am skimming out of issues related to the news of the roll out of this wallet. I could be wrong, but this certainly isn't an open source verifiable decentralized wallet, and that on a big scale is pretty scary.
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