Cornell University’s new Bitcoin Adoption Index suggests that bitcoin ownership is most common in countries where national currencies have been unstable and access to reliable banking or U.S. dollars is limited.

The U.S. Ivy League research university said it surveyed nearly 26,000 people around the world about Bitcoin. In the report, Cornell found that El Salvador, Venezuela and Nigeria had the highest number of respondents who said they 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 said.

“In each, bitcoin functions less as a speculative bet and more as a practical workaround.”

At the same time, Cornell said many respondents lacked basic knowledge of the protocol, including the total number of bitcoins that will ever be issued. According to the report, 58% of those surveyed did not know that bitcoin’s supply is capped at 21 million coins.

The report’s mix of high ownership and limited protocol knowledge points to a gap between Bitcoin’s technical design and how some users experience it in daily life, especially in places where it is used alongside or instead of harder-to-access financial rails.

The report also included comments from users in several countries describing bitcoin as a practical tool rather than an abstract investment. One unnamed Venezuelan told interviewers that bitcoin was “faster, cleaner, and much less risky” than other ways of obtaining dollars in the country.

An unnamed Salvadoran said: “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 rose early in Venezuela as hyperinflation battered the economy and strict government currency controls made it difficult to obtain dollars. In El Salvador, bitcoin became legal tender alongside the dollar in 2021. The country’s leader has acknowledged that encouraging citizens to use bitcoin has been difficult, but the Central American nation still says it purchases the asset for its government coffers.

In Nigeria, where transaction volumes have been among the highest in the world, some people have used bitcoin savings to help navigate the collapse of the naira.

Cornell said the 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 and March 10, 2025, and asked 125 individual questions.