News From El Salvador, Early November: Chivo Pets, Conferences & Bitcoin Smiles

What’s going on in Bitcoin country? Salvadoran smiles got rehabilitation and the Chivo Pets veterinary hospital is well underway. All of that and more made possible by the power of Bitcoin. Of course, not everything is sunny and positive. The Chivo Wallet keeps malfunctioning and bad actors are stealing people’s identities. Besides that, an Internet personality makes her way to El Salvador and finds hip hop in the streets.

To summarize, Bitcoin can do it all and couldn’t care less about politics. If some section of Salvadorans has a problem with President Bukele, that’s between those two parties. We can only celebrate Bitcoin here. That’s what the News From El Salvador feature is about. That’s what Bitcoinist is about. So, let’s do it!

The Chivo Pets Hospital Is Coming Along Nicely, It Seems

• President Bukele is a man of action. First, he presented an updated 3D model of the veterinary hospital that he announced a few weeks ago. Who can argue with a public pet hospital? The opposition. All of Bukele’s tweets are riddled with criticism and vitriol in the replies.

• Then, Bukele presided over an inauguration ceremony at the construction site. In it, he announced that Chivo Pets will employ 300 Salvadorans. He also said, “This veterinary hospital, which will not be build by the State but by the Chivo company, and will charge a simbolic $0.25 for each service that it offers, regardless of which one.” Does that mean that Chivo is a private company? Anyway, here are the pictures:

• And finally, to celebrate yesterday’s Bitcoin All-Time high, Bukele posted this video of the construction of the Chivo Pets facilities that shows real progress. Consider that the inauguration ceremony took place a week ago, and then look at this:

• Here, Congressman Rodrigo Ayala promises 20 new schools with El Salvador’s Bitcoin earnings. Can we believe him? Let’s check back in a couple of weeks to see where we are with this project.

https://twitter.com/rodrigoayalasv/status/1455362018224091142

Problems With The Chivo Wallet

• Under each and every tweet from President Bukele, dozens of people report problems with the Chivo Wallet. Is the app not ready for primetime? Besides that, reports of identity theft to steal the $30 signing bonus abound. Bitcoinist reported:
  

  “Tatiana Marroquin is not the only one in this boat. The Chivo wallet helpline has been flooded with complaints of people finding out their wallets had been activated without their knowledge. The scammers had already made away with their $30 bitcoin sign-up bonus. But more importantly, this raises a security issue with using bitcoin wallets in the future.”

The Borderless Bitcoin Travel Show Hits El Salvador

• Internet personality Olya, a woman who travels the world using only Bitcoin, visited El Salvador. She didn’t visit Chivo Pets, but Olya met some rappers by the train track and tipped them using The Lightning Network. 

Olya shared extra info via Twitter: “Luis (with mask) is a Hip Hop Event organizer and wants the youth of Sonsonate to have safe spaces where they can express their art, freestyling, breakdancing and graffiti, without being stigmatized as gangsters. He hopes that one day El Salvador can host the Freestyle World Cup.” She also campaigned to get them to perform at the Adopting Bitcoin conference, and their official account answered: “Let’s make it happen”

Conferences, Conferences, Conferences

• Next week, El Salvador will host two major Bitcoin conferences: Adopting Bitcoin from the 16th to the 18th; and LABITCONF from the 15th to the 20th. Plus, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert bring the thunder to El Zonte on the 16th.

BTC price chart on FTX | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com

Bitcoin Smiles Shows Their Accomplishments

• ¿Remember the crowd-raising Bitcoin Smiles campaign we showcased in an earlier News From El Salvador? Well, they recently shared the powerful new smiles of these four beautiful women and made the whole world smile. This is what a successful Bitcoin crowdfunding campaign looks like:

That’s it for today. Let’s keep an eye out for all those conferences, the whole community is already in Bitcoin country grounds.

Featured Image: 3D model of the Chivo Pets hospital | Charts by TradingView