According to research from Google Trends, web searches for the word “Bitcoin” dropped 75% since the beginning of 2018, halving in just the last three months, CNBC reports[1] June 4.
Co-founder of Datatrek Research and Wall Street Bitcoin analyst[2] Nicholas Colas, cited by CNBC, links the decline in web searches to the coin’s price rates that have similarly dropped[3] by approximately 50 percent this year. In an email to his clients, Colas adds that “[Bitcoin[4]] needs a new narrative in order to reestablish global attention”.
Google Trends analyzes different periods of popularity of certain web searches. A value of 100 is taken as a peak popularity for a specific search term. In the beginning of January Bitcoin's popularity was 37, dropping to as low as 9 by the beginning of June.
Colas also mentions the decreasing number of newly created Bitcoin wallets, comparing the current period with the last quarter of 2017, when Bitcoin prices neared $20,000[5].
The growth in the number of new wallets in 2018 so far was only 3.7 percent, while in late 2017 it compounded 7.6 percent monthly. “Bitcoin wallet growth needs to be +5 percent/month to see meaningful price appreciation”, Colas concluded.
Google searches for other cryptocurrencies are also in decline, according to CNBC. Ethereum[6] - the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization - has dropped by 70 percent since early 2018, Bitcoin Cash[7] has lost 82 percent and XRP[8] fell 87 percent.
Still, the fifth largest cryptocurrency EOS[9]’ searches have jumped 97 percent in 2018. CNBC linked this to to the company's recent fundraising efforts[10].
