El Salvador experiences unsettled transition to BTC

Bitcoin (BTC) suffered a global dip in value of 15% just hours after El Salvador officially made it a legal tender yesterday.

President Nayib Bukele announced that he had purchased 200 BTC worth around $10m and added that El Salvador had bought an estimated 400 BTC for the country's reserves.

Even though Bitcoin saw an initial spike in price to $53,000, the currency quickly dropped as crypto exchanges began struggling due to the influx of new consumers.

The government's official wallet, “Chivo Wallet”, suffered teething problems. One drawback was that the government has not been able to list it on the official Android app store, prompting people to turn to third-parties, putting consumers at risk.

Apple has been quicker to act by introducing the Chivo Wallet on its iOS marketplace. Meanwhile, all third-party downloads of the Chivo Wallet have stopped working, adding insult to injury.

At the same time the president's legal counsel, Javier Argueta, gave an interview arguing that businesses are obliged to begin using BTC, a U-turn from a previous stance that would have allowed El Salvador's residents to continue using FIAT currency and ignore BTC if they wanted to.

The president did comment on the temporary technical snags pertaining to the Chivo Wallet and explained that the servers had to be taken down temporarily for upgrade due to the overwhelming demand for the wallet.

Any data you try to enter at this time will give you an error. The system is offline while the capacity of the servers is being increased. It's a relatively simple problem, but it can't be fixed with the system online”, he said.

Chivo Wallet users will also get $30 worth of BTC, but this may not be traded out for FIAT currency and will have to be used in local markets instead.

In the meantime, you can use BTC on popular casinos, such as 1xBit, FortuneJack and Bitcasino.io.

Looking for your next crypto casino? Check out: Mega Dice or FortuneJack

Written by Barney

Co-founder

Barney is co-founder of CryptoGamblingNews.com. When not at work he can usually be found behind a Nikon. He's won numerous international competitions for his photography and volunteers as a content creator for aid organisations in Africa.

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