El Salvador Relaunches Chivo Wallet as Linguard Labs Acquires Majority Stake

Linguard Labs has acquired a majority stake in Chivo, El Salvador’s state-backed digital wallet, through a new public-private partnership. For fintech professionals, this represents a significant pivot for the world’s most famous national Bitcoin experiment, transitioning from a government-run utility into a commercially-led platform targeting regional financial inclusion and credit expansion.

What was announced

The partnership aims to relaunch Chivo as a comprehensive financial platform for Salvadorans globally, whether they reside within the country or abroad. While the government remains a shareholder, Linguard Labs now holds the majority stake, a move described as consistent with El Salvador’s International Monetary Fund program. The platform, which currently serves over 4.5 million registered accounts, is being rebuilt in San Salvador alongside major global financial services and crypto partners. The updated Chivo will expand beyond simple transfers to offer microloans and cash advances. These credit products will be underwritten using alternative data, such as user earnings and payment history within the app, rather than traditional bank records. This is specifically designed to reach the millions of unbanked and underbanked citizens who have historically been excluded from the financial system. Merchants will also gain access to financing, including merchant cash advances to buy inventory, hire staff, and expand operations. A major pillar of the relaunch is the elimination of remittance fees for "Regular" users sending money from the United States to El Salvador—a market that saw nearly $10 billion in volume in 2025. Users will be able to spend via the wallet in Bitcoin, dollars, stablecoins, or other supported digital assets at participating merchants while earning cash back, or use a linked debit card for broader acceptance. The platform maintains compliance with El Salvador’s data protection and financial stability laws, requiring valid identification for users to hold funds, borrow, or move between digital assets and fiat.

"We are honored that the government of El Salvador chose Linguard Labs as its partner to reimagine Chivo. We did not take this on for small wins. Cheaper remittance fees are not a win. Free is. Making credit available to Salvadorans, banked or unbanked, is a win. A new era of financial inclusion begins today in El Salvador and will spread across Latin America,"

Drew Weinstein, founder and CEO of Linguard Labs.

The companies involved

Linguard Labs is a provider of trust infrastructure for digital finance, focusing on the intersection of security, interoperability, and regulatory compliance. The firm’s leadership team is composed of former executives from major global financial institutions, including Visa, JPMorgan Chase, and Citi, bringing traditional banking expertise to the digital asset space. Linguard Labs provides the underlying technology used to verify users, merchants, and transactions, enabling global companies and the broader financial industry to serve customers within a secure and efficient framework. Chivo was established as the official digital wallet of El Salvador following the country’s landmark adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender. It has since grown into the nation’s largest digital financial platform, with a user base of 4.5 million registered accounts. The Government of El Salvador, which previously held sole control over the platform, remains a shareholder in the new public-private structure. This transition to a majority-private ownership model under Linguard Labs marks a new phase for the platform as it seeks to integrate more deeply with international financial standards. By leveraging Linguard's compliance-first technology, the platform aims to become a standard for financial inclusion across the Latin American region.

What this means

This move signals that the "Bitcoin-as-legal-tender" experiment is entering a more pragmatic, commercially driven era. By bringing in private leadership with deep roots in legacy finance, El Salvador is attempting to bridge the gap between its crypto-forward policy and the global financial system. The focus on "free" remittances puts immense pressure on traditional money transfer operators who rely on the lucrative US-to-Latin America corridor. However, the success of this pivot depends on whether the market can successfully implement bank-grade compliance and credit underwriting in a region that has historically struggled with financial transparency. It remains to be seen if this model can truly scale across the rest of Latin America.