El Salvador President Nayib Bukele posted a 94 percent approval rating, ranking first in a global leaders approval survey.

On April 19 local time, blockchain outlet BeInCrypto reported that Bukele led the approval rankings covering leaders from 26 countries by a wide margin.

In the cryptocurrency industry, attention is focused on Bukele as the leader who pushed hardest for national-level adoption of bitcoin (BTC). El Salvador in 2021 became the first country in the world to adopt bitcoin as legal tender. The government has continued buying about 1 BTC a day, and national holdings have surpassed 7,600 BTC.

Bukele drew international attention for his bitcoin policy, but the survey found his high domestic approval rating was driven more by other factors. In a recent CID Gallup poll, only 2.2 percent of Salvadorans cited bitcoin as the Bukele administration’s biggest failure.

A tougher security policy centred on cracking down on gangs was cited as the key backdrop to rising approval ratings. Salvadoran voters were found to rate the impact on improved safety more highly than the bitcoin experiment itself. That suggests the bitcoin policy, at least so far, has not directly damaged his approval ratings. The poll also confirmed that domestic voter interest is more focused on security and the economy than on digital assets.

The contrast was also clear when comparing other leaders’ cryptocurrency policies. South Korea President Lee Jae-myung (이재명) was included on the list with a 63 percent approval rating and has pledged to introduce spot bitcoin ETFs and won-pegged stablecoins by 2026, after presenting cryptocurrency as a national priority task.

Argentina President Javier Milei posted a 48 percent approval rating. Milei has supported easing bitcoin regulation, but took a hit to trust after promoting the meme coin Libra and then seeing the coin collapse. In the process, investors were reported to have suffered losses worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

U.S. President Donald Trump recorded a 38 percent approval rating. Trump signed an executive order related to a plan for a U.S. strategic bitcoin reserve funded with seized coins. He also put forward a vision of making the United States a future "bitcoin superpower".

By contrast, many other leaders included in the ranking are dealing with cryptocurrency policy within existing regulatory frameworks. Leaders in some European Union member states support stronger supervision through MiCA regulation.

The ranking shows that a pro-bitcoin stance does not necessarily work against a leader’s political standing. It also showed that in El Salvador’s case, bread-and-butter issues such as security and the economy, rather than bitcoin itself, are driving approval ratings. Against this backdrop, countries’ cryptocurrency policies are increasingly likely to be judged not for symbolism but alongside results that domestic voters can feel.