El Salvador is rolling out a government app called Sivar that lets citizens send and hold digital dollars using stablecoins, not Bitcoin. The app is built by Modveon, a Palo Alto startup that came out of stealth on Tuesday, according to Bloomberg. Sivar's payments settle on Base, the blockchain network built by US exchange Coinbase.
The move marks a sharp practical turn for a country that in 2021 became the first to accept Bitcoin as legal tender. Sivar is a national deployment, the first for Modveon, and the company signed a five-year contract with a multimillion-dollar fee it declined to disclose.
What the app actually does
Users verify with a government ID and are then placed into local groups based on home address. Inside those groups they can send money to each other, post content, and join live polls. Salvadorans living abroad can also vote in local elections through the app. For US users sending money to El Salvador, Modveon charges a flat $2 fee, which covers transfer to an off-ramp.
That structure matters because remittances are the country's economic lifeline. El Salvador received nearly $10 billion in remittances in 2025, central bank data shows, with about 92% of it coming from the United States. Salvadorans sent $9 billion home last year, and percentage fees took millions of it.
Bitcoin stayed in the treasury, not the wallet
Five years ago President Nayib Bukele made El Salvador the first country to treat Bitcoin as legal tender. It never became everyday money. Around 92% of Salvadorans said they had not used it in 2024, according to a University of Central America survey. The IMF found only about 1.75% of remittances moved through crypto wallets.
In 2025, reforms tied to a $1.4 billion IMF loan ended Bitcoin's mandatory status and scaled back Chivo, the state's Bitcoin wallet. Earlier this month the IMF said donations, not public funds, drove the country's recent Bitcoin reserve growth.
Modveon CEO Nana Murugesan told Bloomberg that El Salvador keeps embracing Bitcoin for treasury and as a store of value, but for money movement, stablecoins are the fastest, cheapest, and most trusted way. The company described El Salvador as its first national deployment.
The cost question
Cheaper remittances are the promise. The evidence is mixed. A Bank of Italy study found stablecoin remittances are no cheaper than banks, with costs reaching 9%. Modveon's flat $2 fee sidesteps the percentage model, but that figure only covers the transfer itself — not what recipients pay to convert digital dollars into cash.
Politically, the timing is awkward. Bukele's rivals are challenging his Bitcoin strategy ahead of the 2027 election, and Sivar gives them a fresh target: a foreign startup, a government contract whose value is undisclosed, and a currency experiment that runs through a US exchange's blockchain.
Modveon didn't say when Sivar would be available nationwide, or how many users have signed up so far. The 2027 campaign will likely force those numbers into the open.
