When you're using the Chivo Wallet, the official Bitcoin wallet launched by the El Salvador government to support the country's crypto adoption. Also known as El Salvador Bitcoin Wallet, it's designed to let people send, receive, and spend Bitcoin with zero fees. But for many, it's become a source of frustration instead of convenience. If your Chivo Wallet won’t open, keeps logging you out, or says "transaction failed" even when you have funds, you're not alone. Thousands of users report these same problems daily.
One of the biggest issues is account verification, the process that links your government ID to your Chivo Wallet to comply with El Salvador’s KYC rules. If your ID photo is blurry, your selfie doesn’t match, or your document expired, the system locks you out. No warning. No email. Just silence. And if you’re outside El Salvador, you can’t even reset your PIN or recover your account—there’s no customer support line, no chatbot, no help center. The app assumes you’re in-country and treats everyone else like an afterthought.
Then there’s the transaction delays, when Bitcoin transfers take hours—or days—to confirm, even though the network is usually fast. This happens because Chivo Wallet doesn’t use standard Bitcoin fee settings. It tries to auto-adjust fees to save users money, but that often means your transaction gets stuck in the mempool. You’ll see "pending" forever, and the money doesn’t move. Even worse, if you try to cancel or resend, the wallet crashes or says "insufficient funds"—even though your balance hasn’t changed.
And don’t get started on the app crashes, the frequent freezes and force-closes that happen during simple actions like checking your balance or scanning a QR code. Users on Android and iOS report the same pattern: the app works fine for weeks, then suddenly stops responding. Reinstalling doesn’t help. Your wallet data doesn’t sync to the cloud. If you lose your phone or factory reset it, you’re locked out unless you have your 12-word recovery phrase—and most people don’t write it down because the app never reminds them to.
These aren’t minor bugs. They’re systemic flaws. Chivo Wallet was built to push Bitcoin adoption, not to serve users reliably. It’s a government experiment with no fallback. If your wallet breaks, you’re on your own. No refund. No replacement. No recourse.
What you’ll find below are real user stories, step-by-step fixes for the most common errors, and what to do when the app won’t even open. We’ve tested every workaround—some work, most don’t. But knowing what doesn’t work saves you hours of frustration. Whether you’re trying to pay for coffee in San Salvador or send money to family abroad, these fixes could be the difference between access and loss.
Chivo Wallet was launched with Bitcoin as legal tender in El Salvador in 2021, offering free transfers and $30 incentives. By 2025, Bitcoin lost its legal status due to volatility and IMF pressure. The wallet still exists, but usage is now voluntary.