Google Trends searches for “Bitcoin” soars to highest point since March 2018

Africa tops the world in terms of interest for the word “Bitcoin” with three of the top 5 countries from the continent.

Google Trends analytics shows the interest of Bitcoin is rapidly surging to levels last seen during the massive bull run in late 2017 and early last year. The interest of the term “Bitcoin” is reaching a 14 month high after a spike in number of searches in the past fortnight. The masses seem to have taken a keen interest in the asset after the recent hike in price of BTC above the $8,000 USD mark.

The fall of “Bitcoin” on Google Trends search term results in 2018

In early 2018, the price of BTC fell gradually below the $10,000 USD mark barely a month after hitting an all-time high price of $20,000 USD in mid-December. Times were good then as the world focused on this “new asset” with extremely volatile returns. However, as the gains turned to losses across the year, the interest in this volatile asset also diminished. The skyrocketing interest in the term “Bitcoin” fell drastically across 2018 and early days of 2019 until the “golden cross” happened.

The golden cross effect

“The golden cross is a bullish breakout pattern formed from a crossover involving a security's short-term moving average (such as the 50-day moving average) breaking above its long-term moving average (such as the 50-day moving average).”

In March this year, Bitcoin’s 50-day MA crossed above the 200-day MA which signaled an upcoming bullish momentum. In a space of 20 days after the golden cross, the price of Bitcoin surpassed the $5,000, $6,000, $7,000 and $8,000 marks confirming the bullish momentum. The continued surge in BTC’s price is becoming a hot topic across mainstream media and the general public as well.

The Google Trends charts rank the interest of a term over time using an index where the week with the highest number of searches ranks 100 and the rest indexed accordingly. In December 2017, Bitcoin’s search term ranked 100 and then dipped to below 10 through 2018 and is now rising as the price hikes.

“Bitcoin” Google Trends search index since March 2018

Bitcoin’s current search term index stands at 16 and is projected to hit 20 by the end of this week. While the mainstream media’s reporting is the key factor in the ‘re-rise’ of Bitcoin’s popularity, the bullish run in the past 60 days has played a huge role in bringing the attention back to the flagship cryptocurrency.

Africa showing great interest in cryptocurrencies

The developing world is one of the ripe markets for digital assets and blockchain technology. The lack of established financial systems, corruption and poverty across Africa, the largest developing zone is transforming the continent to a crypto zone.

Africa's interest in cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin tops the charts

According to Google Trends, three countries rank among the top 5 nations interested in Bitcoin. South Africa is the leading country in Google searches for “Bitcoin” followed by Netherlands, Nigeria, Austria and Ghana respectively.

Other related queries to “Bitcoin”

“Bitcoin” rules the world of cryptocurrency in value, stature and adoption. The word has had such a massive impact in the past year pushing other search queries along with it. The rise in value of Bitcoin is the likely explanation to “moon dash” and “moon bitcoin cash” seeing a spike of 2,300% and 2,050% respectively on the Google Trends analytics.

This makes the two terms the highest growing terms related to “Bitcoin” in the past 14 months.

The correlation with Bitcoin’s price

Bitcoin’s price is heavily correlated to their search trends as reported by SEMrush, a search engine marketing agency. The company found a 91% correlation between the search term of Bitcoin and the price of BTC.

This is easily explainable as the media bursts during a strong bullish trend in BTC’s price and becomes quiet during a bearish trend as seen in the past year. This causes an increase in BTC searches when the price is going up causing an even bigger spike in the price and when the price is shooting downwards, the searches also reduce significantly.

Banning cryptocurrency related advertisements on their platform last year, Google contributed heavily on the decreasing number of searches. The company has however joined Facebook in lifting the crypto ad ban in the past few months.