A lot of people know little about Bitcoin and how it works.
But despite knowledge being shallow, for those holding the leading cryptocurrency, it appears to be solving a problem: getting around failing banking rails or inflation.
That’s according to new findings from the U.S. Ivy League research university Cornell, which spoke to nearly 26,000 around the globe about Bitcoin.
In its new Bitcoin Adoption Index report, the top college found that El Salvador, Venezuela and Nigeria were the countries that had the highest number of people who had ever owned bitcoin.
“Ranked by the share of all respondents who have ever owned bitcoin, the leaders are not wealthy financial centers — they are economies where the national currency has been unstable and everyday access to dollars or reliable banking is hard,” the report read.
“In each, bitcoin functions less as a speculative bet and more as a practical workaround.”
Bitcoin Advocacy Associate at Strategy and Junior Fellow at Cornell University’s Brooks School Tech Policy Institute, Ella Hough, added: “Bitcoin works the same everywhere, but people’s need for it does not.
“Across 25 countries, we found that people are more likely to see Bitcoin as a tool for financial freedom where currencies are less stable, banking access is limited, or monetary controls are tighter.”
Still, Cornell found that actually being able to explain the fundamentals of the protocol was difficult for most — including how many bitcoins would ever be minted in existence. In fact, 58% of those surveyed said they didn’t know the supply was capped at 21 million coins.
Technicalities aside, the cryptocurrency has still proved helpful to people wanting to use it, the report found.
One Venezuelan — who wasn’t named — told interviewers that Bitcoin was “faster, cleaner, and much less risky” than other methods of getting dollars in the country.
While another Salvadoran was quoted saying: “When nobody controls [bitcoin], it means we all have control of it.”
A Nigerian interviewee reportedly told Cornell researchers: “I’ve been to six African countries and whenever I go there, I don’t fear it because I know I can spend my bitcoin.”
Bitcoin adoption started growing in Venezuela ahead of other countries years ago, when hyperinflation crippled the economy and strict government currency controls meant getting dollars became difficult.
El Salvador made bitcoin legal tender — along with the dollar — in 2021. The country’s leader admitted that getting its citizens to use the cryptocurrency was difficult but the Central American nation still says it buys the asset for its government coffers.
In Nigeria, which has had some of the highest transaction volumes in the world, saving in bitcoin has been used by some to get around the collapse of the naira.
Cornell University’s research was fielded by Morning Consult in partnership with the Tech Policy Institute in Cornell University’s Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, the Cornell Bitcoin Club, the Human Rights Foundation and the Reynolds Foundation.
Researchers interviewed 25,880 people in 25 countries between December 16, 2024 to March 10, 2025, asking 125 individual questions.