Five years after El Salvador made Bitcoin legal tender, the country’s remittance data still shows limited use of crypto rails in one of the most important parts of its economy.
Central bank figures for the first half of 2026 put crypto remittances at $35.4 million, or 0.7% of the $5.06 billion in total cross-border remittances. In a recent analysis, Ashrith Rao said the figures expose a wide gap between the policy vision promoted by the government and the payment methods people actually use.
Crypto remittances rose from a year earlier, but market share stayed below 1%
The $35.4 million total was up 39.1% from $25.4 million in the same period a year ago. The report said the first-half 2026 figure was also larger than any first-half crypto remittance total in previous years.
That increase did little to change the broader picture. Crypto still accounted for only 0.7% of total remittance inflows. The article noted that remittances are close to 24% of El Salvador’s GDP and have long exceeded the combined income from exports, foreign direct investment, and tourism.
The overall remittance market kept expanding. Total inflows rose from $4.840 billion in the first half of 2025 to $5.060 billion in the first half of 2026, a 4.5% increase. Even so, crypto’s share remained well under 1%.
Traditional channels still dominate the market
More than 84% of remittances sent to El Salvador still moved through banks and traditional transfer companies, according to the report.
Cash remittances rose to 3.8% of the total and were five times the size of crypto channels. The analysis said Salvadorans living abroad, especially in the United States, still tend to choose methods they know and trust.
Bank transfers, Western Union, and MoneyGram may not offer the fastest transfers or the lowest fees, but they remain the first choice for many users because they are familiar and dependable. Five years ago, the government said digital currency could save Salvadorans $400 million a year in remittance fees. The report said that goal has seen little real progress.
Recovery in 2026 followed a sharp drop in 2025
The year-over-year increase also came after a weak 2025. Crypto remittances fell from $85.50 million in 2024 to $57.67 million in 2025, a decline of 32.5%.
The rebound in the first half of 2026 was real, but the report said it came off a very low base. Since the Bitcoin law took effect in 2021, adoption has been uneven, with overall average annual growth only slightly above 1%.
Monthly data pointed to a stronger start to the year. Crypto remittances in the first half posted a 146.4% year-over-year gain. Growth reached 49.7% in the first quarter, slowed to 44.4% in April, and held at 41.7% in May. The article said that moderation was consistent with base effects, given that monthly growth in the same period of 2025 was only 1%. In that reading, the latest move looks more like a temporary lift than a fresh acceleration.
Higher average transfer size does not mean broader adoption
The analysis said the increase was not driven by a large influx of new users. The average transfer sent through crypto wallets rose from $269.7 in 2025 to $310.9 in 2026, up by $41.
That points to greater concentration of funds rather than widespread public adoption. Bigger transfers from a smaller group do not show that crypto has become a common remittance tool across the country.
IMF deal brought legal changes and the Chivo wind-down
In February 2025, El Salvador secured a $1.4 billion medium-term loan from the International Monetary Fund. The report said the package came with two conditions: the government could not actively add to its Bitcoin holdings, and it could not issue public debt or tokenized financial instruments denominated in Bitcoin.
El Salvador then revised its Bitcoin Law. Private merchants were allowed to choose whether to accept Bitcoin, and all taxes and fees had to be paid in U.S. dollars.
As part of the agreement with the IMF, the government-backed Chivo wallet has been gradually shut down. The article described Chivo as a core pillar of President Bukele’s Bitcoin plan. The IMF, for its part, referred to the move as a “wallet business consolidation” rather than a full exit.
The report treated that shift as a major change. Chivo had been the main piece of infrastructure behind the effort to push Bitcoin into everyday payments, and its gradual closure amounts to a clear adjustment in strategy.
Stablecoins may be behind part of the growth
The article also pointed to a contradiction in current policy. On one hand, Bitcoin’s role in daily circulation is being limited. On the other, the government is still adding Bitcoin as a reserve asset.
That suggests the policy focus has shifted away from using Bitcoin as a day-to-day currency and toward treating it as a reserve holding. The remittance figures, in the report’s view, show that the market would look very different if people were actually using Bitcoin as money in everyday life.
The analysis raised another question: how much of the $35.4 million in crypto remittances was really Bitcoin, and how much may have been stablecoins. It gave one example: a Salvadoran living in Los Angeles could bypass Bitcoin and send USDC directly to family in San Salvador through crypto infrastructure.
If a growing share of that remittance volume comes from stablecoins, the actual performance of the Bitcoin project would look weaker than the headline figure suggests. The article said there is no precise breakdown yet, but added that the same trend is visible across Latin America. Bitso has already processed stablecoin payments worth billions of dollars and has become one of the region’s leading crypto exchanges.
Compliance is advancing, mass adoption is not
The report said El Salvador has shown “initial signs of adaptation” in its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing framework, but compliance adjustments are not the same as mass crypto adoption.
At the same time, regulatory pressure is rising globally. Anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing rules are tightening, and the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, or MiCA, is nearing full implementation. The article said that even though El Salvador’s crypto inflows are relatively small, tighter global standards will bring closer scrutiny to those flows.
Five years on, the gap remains
The report stopped short of calling the $35.4 million figure a complete policy failure. It does show that some Salvadorans are using digital assets for cross-border transfers and that real funds are moving through these channels.
Still, measured against the original goals of broader financial inclusion and lower remittance costs, the outcome remains far from what was promised. Total remittances are growing, yet crypto still holds only a marginal share of the market. Five years later, the distance between the political narrative and everyday use remains hard to ignore.