Nearly 80% of El Salvadorans say the country’s Bitcoin strategy has been a failure

Only a little more than a year after El Salvador became the world’s first government to recognize Bitcoin (BTC) as legal cash, the policy looks to be unpopular among most inhabitants.

According to a study conducted by the University of Central America (UCA), over 77% of El Salvadorans believe Bitcoin adoption has been a failure.

Interestingly, despite the government’s efforts to popularize Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, the study found that 75.6% of inhabitants said they had never used digital assets in 2022, when the whole digital asset market plummeted substantially.

Furthermore, with President Nayib Bukele amassing more Bitcoin, another 77% of respondents believe the government should stop spending public money on Bitcoin purchases.

One of El Salvador’s purposes in enacting the legislation was to make it easier for remittances back home to avoid traditional institutions. Notably, remittances are critical to the country’s economy, accounting for around a quarter of El Salvador’s GDP (GDP).

However, figures from the Salvadoran Central Bank in September of this year revealed that cryptocurrency accounted for less than 2% of all transfers.