Was Vitalik Buterin Correct Criticizing Salvador’s Nayib Bukele?

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Last Updated on 29 December 2021 by CryptoTips.eu

Jeroen Kok

Jeroen is one of the lead copywriters on Cryptotips.eu and discusses all recent events in the crypto market. This includes news updates, but also price analyzes and more. He developed his passion for cryptocurrency during the bull run in 2017. He has learned a lot since then. The combination of cryptocurrency and creative writing is perfect for Jeroen and an excellent way to share his knowledge with a wide audience. Find me on LinkedIn / jeroen@cryptotips.eu
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This fall, most of the Bitcoin maximalists cheered when El Salvador’s leader, Nayib Bukele, turned his nation state into the first country where Bitcoin became legal tender. A few months on, many successes seem to have been cheered on (even mining Bitcoin using volcanos), although the MSM claims that Salvadorians haven’t really seen a lot of the turn to crypto.

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Chivo wallet

The latest issue has to do with the state’s official Bitcoin wallet, Chivo, which was supposed to help convince Salvadorans to embrace the cryptocurrency. As of late, many Salvadorians have taken to social media claiming that crypto funds have gone missing from their wallets.

Luis Guadrado wrote:

There is a security flaw on the wallet where money and transactions disappeared.

The story didn’t pick up much traction, given that most of the tweets discussing the issue were in Spanish, but since this week major crypto and tech publications have been writing about it as the problem is apparently here to stay.

If this turns out to be true, it’s worth remembering that the only one this year who criticized the Salvadorian launch of Bitcoin as legal tender was Vitalik Buterin.

Unpopular opinion

At the time, the 27-year-old crypto billionaire claimed that it was wrong to heap praise on Bukele’s government, something for which the normally crypto critical MSM applauded the Ethereum founder.

Vitalik, writing in a Reddit post called Unpopular opinion back in October, stated:

Shame on everyone (ok, fine, I’ll call out the main people responsible: shame on Bitcoin maximalists) who are uncritically praising him.

The Ethereum creator stated that Nayib Bukele “loves being praised”

Additionally, this tactic of pushing BTC to millions of people in El Salvador at the same time with almost no attempt at prior education is reckless, and risks a large number of innocent people getting hacked or scammed.

If the Chivo scandal turns out to be true, Vitalik Buterin will have been correct in retrospect, and all those who have cheered upon Bukele when he launched Bitcoin as legal tender, owe the cryptosphere an apology. Curious to see whether or not we’ll get it.