key takeaways
- Google search data for bitcoin is at a two-year low
- Search volume nears levels seen before 2021 crypto boom
- Despite Rising Prices In 2023, Crypto Industry Suffers From Decreasing Volume
- This trend is supported by looking at the liquidity and trading volumes, which have dropped significantly since the pandemic craze.
We’ve got the dropoff covered crypto liquidity First, while there is no need for a 2022 bear market price drop. However, despite the surge in prices so far in 2023, general interest in crypto is far less than the pandemic hysteria – and the trend doesn’t seem to be slowing down.
This week, another milestone was hit, illustrating just how much the sector has fallen when assessing it on a macro scale. Volume is now at its lowest point since 2020, looking at search interest for the term “bitcoin” around the world.
To recap, the cryptocurrency sector soared in late 2020 after three years in the abyss. This came after weathering an early storm in March 2020, when the COVID pandemic hit markets both within and outside crypto hard.
But it was the first quarter of 2021 when the sector really jumped onto the mainstream stage. The dinner conversation was alive with talk of mysterious internet money, newspapers were talking about blockchain and everyone I wanted in, as a bitcoin price retook its previous high from the 2017 bull market peak…and just kept on going.
While the chart above shows that search volume has declined since that high Q1, as is natural, the scale of the slide betrays the industry’s struggles. As the prices drop further in 2022, the interest in the sector has waned.
There were three notable exceptions, however, when we saw brief increases in interest. May 2022, when the Terra ecosystem collapses, was the one. Then there was June 2022, when a series of bankruptcies hit the space, highlighted by lending firm Celsius. And finally, interest spiked again in November 2022, when FTX imploded.
Unfortunately, none of these episodes were positive, setting the stage for a further decline in interest after the dust settled on various scandals. And that’s what happened — right in 2023, even though prices have started to rebound.
The worsening US climate for crypto
Focusing on the US, the financial center of the world, shows exactly the same trend – in fact, just a bit faster. With the regulatory clampdown worsening in the country, it is also becoming increasingly difficult for crypto companies to operate in the space. Should this result in a lot of crypto activity being pushed overseas, as some speculate, this trend could only worsen going forward.
However, it would be wrong to present this as an American problem. While the regulatory climate in the US certainly hasn’t been helping things over the past few months, this decline in interest has been in play ahead of the start of the 2022 bear market. Regulatory issues may affect the US side more going forward, but to date, countries around the world are seeing a similar decline in interest.
This is illustrated below using Singapore as an example, one of the hottest crypto hubs in Asia, which is pitted against the US and exhibits the same trend.
“Anyone remotely familiar with the cryptocurrency market will be able to tell you that interest is not as high as it used to be. Nonetheless, to see the extent to which Google search volume has fallen is staggering. Despite prices rising in 2023, many who have lost interest in crypto are not coming back. Not only that, but volumes continue to decline, as crypto companies and other industry stakeholders grapple with several hurdles”, SEd Max Coupland, director of CoinJournal.
Seriously, most of this isn’t that surprising. Bitcoin is trading at $68,000 in 2021. institutional And to drain retail money equally. we have done many reports In this flight of capital, showing how capital has left space at a relentless pace.
Volume, liquidity and general interest are all correlated. It’s factually true – how many times have you heard people discussing crypto in the past few months, compared to during the pandemic, when stimulus checks and lockdowns were in full force, and bitcoin north of $50,000. Was doing business in?
There is no denying that crypto has fallen from grace. Now the big question is whether it will be able to return to where it was.
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