According to Google Trends, the analytics tool of the world’s largest search engine, the phrase “crypto is dead” has just reached a search record (value 100). Interestingly, this phenomenon is correlated with a significant increase in the search for the phrase “Bitcoin”, which has seen a strong rise from 19 to 51.
The past week witnessed historic events in the cryptocurrency space that could indeed lead investors to claim “crypto is dead”. For the first time ever, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) fell below the previous cycle peak of $20,000 back in December 2017.
Prior to that, BTC fell below historical support at its 200-week moving average in the $22,400 area. Moreover, the realized loss of BTC investors in the 6-day period from June 13 to 18 was $19.121 billion, reaching a new all-time high.
A wave of extremely bearish news also came from cryptocurrency lending, exchange, and servicing companies. The shock to the market was the collapse of the Terra (LUNA) ecosystem last month. Other cryptocurrency companies have faced serious consequences from this event and the associated FUD.
Celsius, a U.S. crypto lender, froze its customers’ funds in response to the liquidity crisis. Three Arrows Capital (3AC), which offers money management, experienced insolvency issues. Finally, many exchanges and crypto industry leaders (Coinbase, Gemini, Crypto.com, BlockFi) have begun laying off employees in anticipation of a long-term downturn.
“Crypto is dead” – is it?
Such strong negative sentiment is reflected in data from Google Trends. According to this analytics tool, the phrase “crypto is dead” is experiencing an exponential increase in searches today and is recording its all-time high (ATH).
On the historical chart of the last 5 years, we see 3 periods in which the phrase “crypto is dead” established its previous ATH (red arrows). Naturally, they were all correlated with deepening Bitcoin declines, during which the major cryptocurrency generated local or macro lows.
The first such situation occurred at the very end of the previous bear market in December 2018. The second peak occurred during the sharp declines in the BTC price after the previous ATH at $64,900 in April 2021. And the third happened in early May 2022, when Bitcoin lost support at $38,000 and fell to the $27,000 level.
Thus, it can be concluded that the increase in the search phrase “crypto is dead” is a signal of extremely negative sentiment in the crypto market. However, in the long term, this indicator can be interpreted in an inverted way – as a signal of a BTC bottom.
The standard interpretation of the famous Fear and Greed Index suggests the same. This macro market indicator has also been recording an ultra-bearish sentiment of extreme fear for many weeks. The index has been below the 20 level since May 9.
“Bitcoin” is gaining popularity
Google Trends provides yet another interesting piece of information besides the record-breaking phrase “crypto is dead”. It turns out that the phrase “Bitcoin” is also seeing a large increase in searches in the global statistics.
This is a rather surprising development, as usually a large increase in interest in the phrase “Bitcoin” was correlated with record prices for the largest cryptocurrency. With last week’s declines, search interest in the phrase “Bitcoin” rose strongly from 19 to 51.
Thus, it can be said that today’s level of interest in BTC is half that of late 2017. Back then, Bitcoin was setting the aforementioned historical ATH of $20,000. According to Google Trends, this was also the ATH of searches for the phrase “Bitcoin”.
In the historic search chart for this phrase, we see that there were two more periods of higher interest (red arrows). The first relates to the period of dynamic BTC growth in January and February 2021, and the second to the declines after the above-mentioned historical ATH in April 2021. In that case, the dynamic declines occurred in May 2021.
Google Trends thus provides us with a dual picture of the health of the cryptocurrency market. On the one hand, it indicates that retail investors – despite the low price – are showing interest in Bitcoin. On the other hand, it shows – like the Fear and Greed Index – extremely negative market sentiment. The phrase “crypto is dead” is an iconic expression of such sentiment today, as the cryptocurrency market has “died” many times before.
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