Bitcoin "falls" from Google search top, memecoin reigns

Google searches for Bitcoin have dropped sharply, while memecoin on the Solana and TRON ecosystems have attracted unprecedented attention.

Is Bitcoin "out of favor", no longer of interest?

According to Google Trends statistics, Bitcoin searches have dropped to a yearly low, reaching 33/100 in the week of October 7-12, 2024. This is also the most modest record since the keyword peaked at 100 in May 2021.

Data from Google Trends represents search interest as a percentage of its peak value, with a score of 100 representing the most popular.

The trend is similar when looking at specific data in the United States, with a value of 16 recorded last week - the lowest since reaching 13 points on October 14, 2023.

Interest in Bitcoin peaked in March, when the king coin nearly hit its all-time high of $73,777. At that time, US Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) also recorded nearly $10 billion in daily trading volume.

Low interest does not necessarily mean that Bitcoin's price will go down. In fact, the king coin has increased by 142%, from $26,850 to nearly $65,000, over the past 12 months.

Ryan Lee, research director at Bitget Research, believes that the market stagnation from May to September 2023 is a good opportunity to build positions while waiting for a big growth. Therefore, buying during low Bitcoin search volume remains a sound and solid strategy.

One reason for the decline is the current global environment. Bitcoin has not experienced any major volatility or media attention in recent months, unlike previous bull cycles. As a result, investors appear to be looking for riskier investment opportunities with explosive profit potential.

Memecoin tops Google search

While global searches for the keywords “Ethereum” and “crypto” are low, some other industry terms are doing better.

The first example is the keyword “Solana”, which has outperformed both Bitcoin and Ethereum for many months, reaching a peak in May, higher than the peak in September 2021. Although the current search volume has dropped to 31, it is still double the index of 15 last year.

“NFTs” have remained steady in search interest over the past 18 months, despite a sharp decline from its January 2022 peak. Similarly, “DeFi” has held its ground over the past two years, after peaking in July 2021. The newer term “onchain” was at a record high in June, but also fell sharply to 8 last week.

Hot sub-categories like “memecoin,” which has corrected since its March peak, are now back up to 65, buoyed by Murad Mahmudov’s “super memecoin cycle” talk at Token2049 last month.

Ryan Lee argues that memecoins and AI have always been seen as more solid opportunities in this market cycle. Meme coins that lead the wave tend to be hyped along with the market, making them one of the most popular tastes in high-risk, high-reward investments.

As summarized, since September 2024, there have been 491,000 new tokens created on the Solana network, mostly memecoins. On October 9 alone, nearly 20,000 new tokens “sprouted”.

Justin Sun, founder of TRON, is also not out of this trend by launching the SunPump platform, allowing anyone to create their own memecoin. CryptoQuant commented that the memecoin boom reflects the growing demand for speculative assets with low entry costs.

While memecoins can be profitable, they still pose many risks and pitfalls for investors. The coming weeks may determine whether this trend is long-term or just a temporary bubble.