That is part of the information that the US company reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), published by El Faro
An official document that the Athena company presented to the United States government in February of this year reveals that what the users of the Chivo application have in their virtual wallet is not Bitcoin or dollars, but rather some kind of tokens, as published by the digital media The lighthouse.
“When Salvadorans convert their bitcoin to dollars, they do not receive dollars in their digital wallet,” Athena reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Athena Bitcoin Global is the company that was in charge of providing the Chivo ATMs in El Salvador, which would allow salvadorans to carry out transactions with Bitcoin. In El Salvador, this company received a $1.5 million loan from Banco Hipotecario and its guarantee is the 200 ATMs installed in the country.
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According to the publication of El Faro, the official document that the company presented on February 10, 2022 to the SEC, explains that the users of the Chivo Wallet “become bearers of ‘stable-dollars’ currencies, which are only a certificate of the real dollars. At that point, Salvadorans have an asset backed by the full faith and credibility of Mr. (Nayib) Bukele’s government.”
In fact, computer experts such as Mario Gómez had already warned since the state wallet was launched, in September 2021, that what Salvadorans were using in transactions were not bitcoins and recommended that Salvadorans not install that application on their cell phones.
“I have to say it and let anyone get angry: those $30 are not bitcoins, they simply reside in the wallet and are credited to whoever you make the first transfer to, but they are not bitcoins,” Gómez said.
“If you want to receive bitcoins, use any other (wallet), but not that one and if you want to use it, wait a while,” he added.
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The digital medium indicates that the document presented by Athena is known as a prospectus, which is a requirement for companies that want to sell their shares on the US stock market and that “the information is part of the legal offer that must be delivered to potential buyers of your shares.
He adds that in said document, Athena acknowledges that “there are possibilities that Bitcoin can be used to launder money and that its instability could be detrimental to users of the most impoverished sector of the country.”
It also points out that the statement about the use of “tokens” in the Chivo Wallet is part of a summary that the company makes to the SEC about the expansion of operations in El Salvador of Athena in which it is detailed that it spent “up to 75 million dollars to provide the value of 30 dollars in bitcoin to each Chivo wallet, which would be enough to subsidize 2.5 million inhabitants out of a total of 6.5 million.”
The government has said that there are 4 million Salvadorans who have downloaded the application, according to data as of October 2021, which would mean spending $120 million on the $30 bonuses through Chivo.
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El Faro also states that the Athena company reveals in the document that it provided the US government with information on the inner workings of the wallet, as well as details of the contracts with the Bukele government.
Likewise, the media indicates that the company details information on the agreement with the Executive, which involved developing and maintaining the “Chivo Ecosystem”, which includes providing the software with which the wallet operates, both the application that works on cell phones and the one located on the servers.