El Salvador Makes Bitcoin A Legal Tender

According to a poll released on Wednesday, very few people used Bitcoin in El Salvador last year—the first nation in the world to declare the cryptocurrency a form of legal tender.

This ground-breaking move was made in 2021 by President Nayib Bukele’s administration, which put bitcoin in circulation alongside the US dollar, which had replaced the Salvadoran colon in 2001.

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The objective was to encourage Salvadorans to open bank accounts, as 70 percent of the population did not have one, and to make remittances, which make up a fifth of the country’s GDP, more affordable to send.

But according to a Central American University survey, 85% of respondents said they never used bitcoin to pay for a good or service last year, and 3% said they had never done so.

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The poll was carried out from December 9 to 22 among 1,280 people and had a margin of error of 2.7 percent.

A total of 77.8 percent of those questioned said that with bitcoin as legal tender their family financial situation has remained unchanged.

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The government has said it has bought 2,381 bitcoin, without specifying what it paid.

Bitcoin hit a 22-month high on Tuesday at $47,914 per unit after a fabricated post on the X platform, formerly Twitter, said the US Securities and Exchange Commission had agreed to let bitcoin exchange-traded funds list on leading stock markets.