El Salvador has become the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender, with the Chivo digital wallet becoming available on the app platforms hosted by Apple (AAPL.O) and Huawei (HWT.UL).
President Nayib Bukele announced in a tweet early in the day that Chivo had been temporarily disabled to increase the capacity of the servers, due to so many people trying to install it after Bukele promised $30 of bitcoin for each user. He tweeted, “Any data they try to enter at this time will give them an error. This is a relatively straightforward problem, but it cannot be fixed with the system connected.”
El Salvador’s government purchased an additional 150 bitcoins on Tuesday, worth around $7 million. The same day, Mcdonald’s in the country began accepting the cryptocurrency.