According to the annual survey by José Simeón Cañas Central American University in El Salvador, 12% of the local population used Bitcoin at least once to pay for goods and services last year. 

The survey was conducted in December 2023, featuring 1280 respondents who were visited at their homes to collect interviews.

Most of those who bought something with Bitcoin last year used it only one to three times (49.7%), while 20% used it ten or more times. Surprisingly, the main expense line in BTC appeared to be groceries (22.9%) and supermarkets (20.9%), followed by veterinary clinics (15%).

The survey shows that the number of Salvadorans using Bitcoin has fallen — the 2022 research from the same University claimed that 24.4% of the population had bought something with BTC.

The number of those who feel their family's life improved during the last year, with Bitcoin being a legal tender, has risen insignificantly, from 3% in 2022 to 6.8% in 2023. However, more than a third of respondents (34.3%) believe that the overall economic situation in the country improved in 2023, but primarily due to the decline of crime (24.3%). Only 0.5% of Salvadorans think Bitcoin has something to do with the economy’s improvement.

Notably, the 45-page survey doesn’t contain questions about El Salvador’s government's Bitcoin investments. Last year, 77.1% of respondents said they wanted the government to stop “spending public money on Bitcoin.”

According to the “Nayib Bukele Portfolio Tracker,” which follows the changes in El Salvador’s Bitcoin stash, the overall profit of the government’s BTC portfolio constitutes around 0.57% at the time of writing.