El Salvadoran Government leverages AlphaPoint to power Chivo

By Edlyn Cardoza

Chivo, the national crypto wallet, is now operating with AlphaPoint white label infrastructure. AlphaPoint, which provides fast, scalable financial technology to institutions globally, is helping El Salvador to offer financial services and access to Bitcoin for millions of Salvadorans actively using the wallet.

In September, El Salvador became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender, as the government launched the Chivo wallet to facilitate Bitcoin transactions in the country. The government deposited $30 in Bitcoin in every El Salvadorans’ Chivo wallet as ‘seed money’ to propel Bitcoin transactions.

With every McDonalds, Starbucks, Walmart, Airport and Government office in the country already accepting Bitcoin with Chivo, the project aspires in the next year to simplify payment of home utilities, taxes, and many other daily transactions in Bitcoin as well. Chivo is also in the process of deploying hundreds of Bitcoin ATMs around the country to serve the Salvadoran population more readily.

AlphaPoint supports the frontend and backend infrastructure that powers the wallet and integrates the entire ecosystem, including the mobile application, mobile point-of-sale processing, merchant website portal, call-centre support software, and administrative console. Their build focuses heavily on wallet stability and uptime, scalability, and social impact, while also integrating user verification services leveraging machine-learning facial recognition and authentication tools. AlphaPoint also improved the Lightning integration for nearly instantaneous low-fee Bitcoin transactions via QR and Lightning addresses.

Chivo is a FinTech application providing infrastructure to bring the 70% unbanked population of the country into the financial ecosystem. The AlphaPoint-powered wallet facilitated millions of transactions alone last month, with more businesses enabling daily transactions. The wallet is free to use for all Salvadorans, with zero commissions.

“El Salvador and President Bukele are truly leading globally with this first major experiment in Bitcoin adoption at a country-wide level,” Igor Telyatnikov, Co-founder and CEO of AlphaPoint, said, “No one else has attempted to execute a project of this size. We at AlphaPoint are honored to be involved in the process and provide the scalable and reliable solutions needed for this massive undertaking. The Chivo application is currently supporting millions of Salvadorans, many for their first time accessing financial services.”

AlphaPoint was the first white-label marketplace provider in the cryptocurrency industry and has been a trusted solution for large-scale institutional-grade exchange infrastructure for more than eight years. It is considered a foundational member of the industry with focused priorities in scalability, security, and flexibility to serve clients worldwide.