Cryptocurrency Sentiment Trend In 2018
Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Trends Seen In Enthusiastic :
The following study highlights Bitcoin and cryptocurrency trends/patterns observed on the internet searches i.e. what enthusiastic search most’. You might remember comparing Bitcoin prices with searches on Google.
The research uses the same fundamental but expands its reach to other crypto related search terms and other data sources to form an opinion.
Bitcoin Interest Level:
Though Bitcoin searches on the internet have dropped and remain in the range of 85-90% for most countries. In Nigeria, the interest level dropped least by only 30-35%. Though we have to admit given the range of countries
So to narrow down our searches, we started to compare the internet search trends with trading volumes in LocalBitcons. Though volume from one trading platform ‘LocalBitcoin’ is not enough to draw a conclusion, still we are using it as it provides volume split by country and just enough for our sample study.
According to our finding, the trends for Bitcoin has least dropped in the Latin America region. (Countries in LA we are referring to are Colombia, Peru, Venezuela (Very obvious), Chile & Argentina).
Given the pattern we have observed, Latin Ameria region seems to be mostly in support of Bitcoin and could be a region in fore-front to drive-up Bitcoin adoption in 2019.
ICOs And STOs:
ICOs once named as the most successful fundraising strategy where last year companies/startups like EOS and Telegram raised access of 1 Billion$.
Towards the end of the Year, the excitement towards ‘ICO’ has faded in the minds of the crypto community. This was also apparent from
According to google trend analysis, ‘ICO’ search term has dropped most by 90%. As a result of continuously dropping bitcoin prices, investors have stayed away from new investments and many startups failed to even reach their funding soft-cap.
It is difficult to say if in 2019 the outlook of ICOs will regain momentum like it was in H1 2018. Many believe that due to unclear guidelines and regulation pressure, STOs will rise in popularity and therefore may replace the current fundraising strategy.
According to trend analysis, searches on ‘security token offering’ has not slowed down indicating that the interest in STOs continues to grow in the minds of investor’s and community is making themselves aware of this new method of fundraising.
Given the current circumstances where increased pressure from regulations like U.S. SEC declaring all ICOs as security and recently Malasia government regulating ICOs as securities, therefore, STOs appears to be the safe bet for new start-ups hoping to attract traditional institutions for fundraising.
Surprisingly top VCs are still active and continue to invest in new blockchain based start-ups. Most commonly observed investment choice among VCs is ‘stable coins’.
Blockchain Adoption or Learning:
When it comes to understanding or learning about blockchain, the search term “blockchain” dropped by 50-60% but not as significant as other crypto-buzz-words. This indicates interest level in how blockchain tech can revolutionize the world still continues in the minds of people and community is focusing on learning blockchain.
There is silence over the past few months and little to no activity in community engagement platforms like widely used chat platform Telegram. However, the data from popular cryptocurrency sites show a little drop in the view/browsing rate (dropped by 20-30%) indicating that crypto community may be silent but watchful of the events happening.
Surprisingly, the searches for Bitcoin ETF were very low. To confirm this, we ran a forum discussion in Reddit. Most people believe that Bitcoin ETF approval is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
Also many continued to say for another bull run, blockchain startups should first prove its use case (for ex, WWF implementation of blockchain) and mass adoption.
So if you are a start-up bringing real use case on the table and many partnerships in the pipeline, you might continue to shine in the eyes of experience crypto community in 2019.
dapps Growth And Development:
In a related search term ‘dapps’, search for dapps on the internet has least dropped (by only 30-40%) comparing to other crypto-buzz-words.
This suggests either users are looking out for new dApps or might be developers/ startups are searching how to build blockchain based apps. It is difficult to say which of the latter two could be the reason for this search pattern.
A common pattern observed was that countries which topped this search term are blockchain start-up friendly. Maybe developer community or new startups are actively researching on dapps development.
Top discussed content in social media:
Noteworthy to mention, among all kind of cryptocurrency or Bitcoin related stories shared or discussed in social media, the story of “50 cents” was among one of the top 10 shared and discussed content in the
Maybe the cryptocurrency community or observers are reflecting on the long-term horizon of bitcoin and ‘
Cryptocurrency exchanges:
Lastly searches on ‘Cryptocurrency exchanges’. The search was dominated mostly in Arabic countries as was observed in a year before(2017). Note the market downtrend has proportionally impacted. Arab countries continue to maintain interest in 2018. Maybe cash-oil-rich countries are increasingly moving their attention from liquid-gold to digital-gold.
Searches on the internet for ‘Cryptocurrency exchanges’ from Asian countries (China, Singapore, Hong Kong which were in the top 10 list of 2017) has dropped in 2018.
In related search queries, other than searching for a specific Exchange, search terms like ‘cryptocurrency exchange development, ‘open source code’, ‘exchange script’ dominated the top rising trends. Maybe a lot of new exchange is in development (which will be a copy from somewhere) or hackers finding loopholes. Later seems to be the case given the increased number of exchange hacks in 2018 (approx 850 Million$+ worth of crypto stolen).
Disclaimer:
(1) This report is based on last one year trend and insights summarized are authors interpretation.
(2) There is no certainty that these trends will continue and therefore should be treated only for information purpose.
(3) The inference assumes that “People search what they think or believe”.
(4) Following tools & sources were used for data collection – Google trend analysis, SimilarWeb,
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