El Salvador faced a rocky transition in its adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender on Tuesday as the country adjusted to new technology that will allow payment using cryptocurrency.
The country is the first to use Bitcoin as an official currency. Officials struggled to smooth out glitches in the new system, including with the country’s digital wallet, called Chivo, which is slang for “cool.”
President Nayib Bukele tweeted on Tuesday morning that the national digital wallet would be available to Salvadorans in the United States and almost anywhere in the world. But for a time it was not available to anyone, and the country slowed its rollout.
Mr. Bukele also announced on Twitter that servers were temporarily being taken offline as Chivo added capacity and acknowledged issues with downloads. “We prefer to correct it before reconnecting it,” he said.
Experts raised concerns in June about the hasty adoption of the new currency and the rapid execution of new technology on a national scale.