Cornell University has released a Bitcoin Adoption Index built on interviews with 25,880 people across 25 countries, and its central finding inverts the common assumption that bitcoin ownership concentrates in wealthy financial centers. The countries with the highest share of respondents who have ever owned bitcoin are El Salvador, Venezuela and Nigeria — three economies marked by currency instability, restricted dollar access or unreliable banking.

"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 states. "In each, bitcoin functions less as a speculative bet and more as a practical workaround."

The research was fielded by polling firm Morning Consult in partnership with the Tech Policy Institute at Cornell's Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, the Cornell Bitcoin Club, the Human Rights Foundation and the Reynolds Foundation. Researchers surveyed respondents between December 16, 2024 and March 10, 2025, asking 125 questions per person.

Ella Hough, a Bitcoin Advocacy Associate at Strategy and a Junior Fellow at Cornell's Brooks School Tech Policy Institute, framed the results in utility terms. "Bitcoin works the same everywhere, but people's need for it does not," she said. "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."

Thin knowledge, heavy use

The index also exposes a wide gap between adoption and comprehension. Most respondents could not explain basic mechanics of the protocol. Fifty-eight percent of those surveyed said they did not know bitcoin's supply is capped at 21 million coins — the hard monetary limit embedded in the protocol since its inception. Ownership, in other words, does not correlate with technical literacy.

The qualitative interviews conducted alongside the survey point to why the gap may not matter to users. A Venezuelan respondent, unnamed in the report, described bitcoin as "faster, cleaner, and much less risky" than other methods of obtaining dollars in the country. A Salvadoran interviewee said: "When nobody controls [bitcoin], it means we all have control of it." A Nigerian respondent told 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."

Three national contexts

Each of the top three countries in the index carries a distinct monetary backstory. Venezuela's bitcoin community took shape years ago as hyperinflation crippled the economy and strict government currency controls made dollar acquisition difficult. El Salvador made bitcoin legal tender alongside the dollar in 2021; the country's leadership has acknowledged that driving everyday usage among citizens proved difficult, but the government continues to buy the asset for its treasury. Nigeria, which has recorded some of the highest peer-to-peer transaction volumes in the world, has seen residents use bitcoin savings to hedge the collapse of the naira.

The pattern across all three is consistent: adoption tracks the failure of existing rails rather than speculative appetite. Where the formal banking system delivers reliable dollar access, ownership rates lag. Where it does not, bitcoin functions as payment channel, savings instrument and cross-border transfer medium simultaneously.

Implications for policy and market structure

For policymakers, the findings complicate narratives on both sides of the bitcoin debate. The data suggests that restrictions on banking access and currency controls — not marketing or speculation — are the strongest predictors of adoption, which implies that capital-control regimes may be inadvertently channeling citizens toward decentralized alternatives. It also raises operational questions for regulators in emerging markets: a user base that does not know the supply cap is 21 million is unlikely to engage with self-custody best practices or fraud warnings aimed at sophisticated investors.

For financial institutions and payments firms, the index identifies where bitcoin-based rails already compete with correspondent banking and remittance corridors. The Human Rights Foundation's involvement in the research signals that the financial-inclusion argument — long made by bitcoin advocates — now has quantitative backing from an Ivy League institution.

Cornell has published the index methodology and findings online, positioning it as a recurring benchmark. If the survey repeats on an annual cycle, it will offer a longitudinal measure of whether adoption spreads from currency-distressed economies into stable ones — and whether the 58% supply-cap knowledge gap narrows as ownership broadens.