El Salvador’s Chivo Wallet Is Not Widely Used Study Finds

El Salvador’s Chivo wallet is not widely used as the new study finds, despite the high initial interest so let’s read more today in our latest cryptocurrency news.

The usage for Bitcoin transactions is low and concentrated among certain demographic as the study shows that El Salvador’s Chivo wallet is now being widely used in the country. The new study published by the Economic Bureau of Economic Research claims that the wallet has been busted. The researchers said that despite the high initial interest, the usage of the wallet is low and concentrated among the banked and educated demographic but what’s more, they say virtually no downloads happened in 2022. By extension, this suggests that the BTC experiment in El Salvador is slowing down.

In 2021, BTC became a legal tender in El Salvador and marked a historical moment for crypto adoption. The rollout was supported by the government-backed Chivo wallet which enabled fast payments in dollars and BTC and in a push to incentivize downloads, each new user can claim $30 worth of BTC for free:

“The Chivo Interface is designed to be simple and intuitive, giving you the functionality you need for your daily use, for consumption, remittances, and personal finances in general.”

El Salvador’s president Bukele announced on Twitter as many people already have a wallet compared to a bank account. Since then, the users reported severe problems including identity fraud, name leaks, and bugs. As the country approaches the nine-month mark since the BTC law was passed, the research released the result of a face-to-face survey of 1800 households and for BTC advocates, the findings make for quite an uncomfortable reading. The low usage concentrated among the bank and educated male population. The researchers found that over two-thirds of people were aware of the existence of the wallet:

“The probability of being aware of Chivo is higher for individuals who own a cell phone with internet, and who are banked, educated, young, and male.”

The issue was completed by Salvadorians that have low access to phones with internet access at 65% and in 2021, 85% of the US adults owned a smartphone. Half of those ware of the wallet downloaded the app and most downloads came after the wallet launched in September 2021. less than half of those that did download the wallet continue to use it after spending the bonus which equates to 20% and of those that continue to use the wallet most don’t engage with the app intensively:

“Moreover, we do not find evidence of Chivo Wallet being used to pay for taxes or to send remittances at a significant scale.”