During 2018, the number of searches for the word bitcoin on Google‘s search engine fell sharply: this is one of the most significant data that emerges from Google Trends statistics for the year that has just ended.
But if you compare these data with those of the search for the word blockchain you will find that bitcoin is searched ten times more. Â
The peak of bitcoin searches occurred between 14th and 20th January 2018: it reached 100 in terms of search volume in that week and fell below 20 in December, with a loss of 80% of searches during the year.
The peak of blockchain searches always occurred in the first weeks of January, and by December it had fallen by 80%.
Therefore, the dynamics during the year were similar for the Google searches of the two words, with a reduction in interest of equal magnitude, in percentage.
One curious thing is that the country with the most searches for the word blockchain is the tiny island of Malta, with less than a million inhabitants. China is in the second position, while the third position of Ghana and the fourth of Sant’Elena seem to suggest that these geographical data reported by Google Trends are not very accurate.
In the light of these data, it can be said that the interest in blockchain seems to be related to the interest in bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, at least on Google.
In fact, the collapse of interest in bitcoin is similar to the collapse of its value and the volume of searches for the word blockchain over the year has undergone a similar dynamic, although it does not overlap perfectly.
Comparing the searches for blockchain with those concerning Ethereum and Ripple, it is possible to discover that also these two searches have followed a very similar trend.
In December, the search volumes were evened out, even if in the course of the year the volume that dropped the most was that of Ripple, followed by Ethereum.
Therefore, the volume of blockchain searches in 2018 has decreased less than those of Ethereum and Ripple, most likely due to the sustained decline in prices of the two cryptocurrencies.
Isolating the last 30 days, it even turns out that Ethereum had dropped below the other two, but it recovered a bit at the end of December while blockchain and Ripple were falling.
Of the three, Ripple remains the most searched for.
