According to the most recent survey carried out among the population of El Salvador, almost 8% of citizens said they use bitcoin (BTC) for their daily transactions. A percentage that represents a drop in the interest of the citizens of that country in the cryptocurrency since it was declared legal tender in 2021. This is shown by the results of the “First Survey Rumbo País 2024 Do people have faith?” carried out by the Center for Citizen Studies of the Francisco Gavidia University (UFG), whose questionnaire was applied between September 25 and 30, 2024 with 1,224 interviewsa confidence level of 95% and a margin of error of 2.8%. These are results that indicate that the Salvadoran population has its main interests in mind. on topics such as education and industry developmentwith very little emphasis on the bitcoin ecosystem, which is important for the future of the country only in consideration of the 1.3% of the population. The data shows a decrease in the use of bitcoin in the Central American country, which seems to have accentuated throughout 2024. This, after at the beginning in previous years there will be an advance in the adoption percentage. As BitcoinDynamic reported, for January 2024 the study results from the José Simeón Cañas Central American University (UCA) showed that BTC usage had exceeded 10%with just over 88% of Salvadorans saying they had not used cryptocurrency during 2023. Now, the UFG survey take that percentage to 92%.
The percentage of BTC adoption in El Salvador has been decreasing in the last 3 years. Source: BitcoinDynamic. These latest figures also highlight a drop compared to surveys carried out in 2022 and 2021, when BTC use reached more than 20%. A fact that leads to the conclusion that the rejection of cryptocurrency has continued in these three years since the enactment of the Bitcoin Law, and that they are little expectation of increased interest. This was even pointed out by President Nayib Bukele in a recent interview, in which he seemed a little disappointed by these results and confessed that he had expected a higher level of adoption. However, it is these figures that make the International Monetary Fund (IMF) be willing to sign an agreement with El Salvadoras reported a few weeks ago by the organization's spokesperson, Julie Kozack, admitting that due to its little use «there were no financial risks with bitcoin.» As explained by the IMF spokesperson, one of the main fears they still have is that the digital currency be widely used in the country. Hence the initial recommendation they made to repeal the Bitcoin Law and the statements that place bitcoin as «a key issue» in the negotiations. In that sense, the organization has made known its intentions that the adoption of BTC remains low among Salvadorans. To this end, it has reached preliminary agreements with Bukele that seek to limit the scope of the Law and prevent the government from the use of cryptocurrencies is promotedas a way to grant a loan of USD 1.3 billion and stabilize the country's economy. But, even though the IMF considers that «many of the risks of bitcoin have not yet materialized,» it insists that more efforts are needed to «mitigate the fiscal and financial stability dangers posed by the bitcoin project.»