More than a year after bitcoin became legal tender in El Salvador, a new poll Tuesday showed most people in the country view President Nayib Bukele’s controversial move as a “failure.”

According to the University of Central America (UCA) survey, 75.6 percent of respondents said they never used cryptocurrency in 2022, and 77 percent consider its adoption as legal tender alongside the dollar 14 months ago “a failure. “

Bitcoin, which has fallen in value over the past year, “is the most disliked, most criticized and most frowned upon government action,” UCA Rector Andreu Oliva commented on the study’s findings.

Bukele’s idea was to encourage crypto-money transfers from around three million Salvadorans living abroad, mostly in the United States, to their relatives back home, thereby saving on bank fees.

The president’s decision was strategic given that these remittances account for more than a quarter of El Salvador’s gross domestic product.

But according to data from the Salvadoran Central Bank, in early September, a year after Bitcoin’s launch, “less than two percent” of expatriate remittances were made using the cryptocurrency.

In September 2021, Bitcoin was hovering around $45,000. It climbed to $68,000 by November, but after a steep decline it is currently trading below $20,000.

Bukele took advantage of falling prices and bought 80 bitcoin with public funds in July, bringing El Salvador’s total reserves to 2,381 units.

According to the UCA study, 77 percent of Salvadorans believe their president “should not continue to spend public funds to buy bitcoin.”

The poll also looked at an emergency regime that since March has been seen as part of the Bukele-decreed “war” on gangs, which led to the arrests of 55,000 suspected members of criminal gangs, the dreaded “maras”.

The population still overwhelmingly agrees at 75.9 percent, but that figure was nine points lower than May’s, when it was 84.8 percent.