Google searches and tweets about Bitcoin decline sharply | Hacker News Reader

Google searches and tweets about Bitcoin decline sharply

bloomberg.com

51 pointsjustboxing31 comments

Using Google Trends alone for calling a trend a success/failure isn’t fair, as a spike can be correlated to confusion about the term, and it’s a safe assumption swarms of non-techies were Googling “how do I buy Bitcoin and get rich?” in November.

Good observation. Normalization of a new thing doesn't necessarily mean it's falling out of favor. My non-techie wife even knows what Bitcoin is now and isn't trying to understand it anymore.

If non techies aren't trying to understand it anymore what does that mean the next step for them would be? Adoption?

Perhaps. If my wife, for example, was asked by Western Union if "is Bitcoin okay?" for a money transfer to her brother, she would probably now say "sure". Where 5 years ago, she would have resisted. Brand awareness.

I would say the term Bitcoin on its own is commonly enough understood. Even to non-techies.

Google Trends has accurately predicted several things in the past, most notably, the rise of Donald Trump[1]. Also obscure things like who'll win Dancing with the Stars, [2], Dancing with the Stars, March Madness and more.

[1] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/matt-dabrowski/how-google-tre...

[2] https://wrightimc.com/use-google-trends-predict-outcomes/

Misleading article. The sharp spike in the graph was due to the drastic increase in the bitcoin price. This was the time when Bitcoin hit all time high and so the # of searches for the term.

Now that phase has passed and so the search trend is coming back to as it was before the spike. Also, it will go down because now more and more people already know about crypto. Not sure how that is a bad sign. Totally misleading article.

The title is written that way for a reason.

I agree with you, also "bitcoin" is sort of just a catch phrase at this point, a lot of people got in for because of bitcoin, but pay more attention to altcoins very soon.

A person with a certain perspective would see it that way. Suppose you think Bitcoin is a fad or bubble. Ponzi scheme doesn't quite fit since there's no mastermind orchestrating it. You think that people are only buying or outlaying the capital to mine bitcoin in the hopes that someone downline gives you more money for it than you invested. Eventually the world will run out of greater fools and the price would plummet. Decreasing interest from new people would definitely signal something to this person.

> Ponzi scheme doesn't quite fit since there's no mastermind orchestrating it.

What about the 'Whales' ? Apparently < 1,650 Wallets (and individuals owning those wallets) possess over 90% of all bitcoin in circulation, and each has a minimum of 1000 BTCs.

These whales have routinely manipulated the market. Most recently on Feb 6th, when the Mt Gox Custodian dumped like 300 million worth of BTC and briefly the BTC price plummeted from 7Ks to 5.6K.

What about them? What you describe just sounds like normal supply and demand to me. These 'whales' need to convert bitcoin to traditional currency to buy houses, cars, etc. The question is whether there's an unending supply of people who will buy into cryptocurrencies to support the demand side of the equation. And bitcoin isn't really on my radar anyways since nobody uses GPUs to mine it anymore.

Fading or becoming more ubiquitous?

Oh look. Another Bloomberg article shitting on bitcoin. Seriously, I don't even have to guess the source of these doom and gloom articles on HN anymore. They are wrong way more than they are right and have made it a sport to generate clickbait like this article, titled: The Bitcoin Fad Is Fading—for Now (note the word 'fad', clearly meant to be inflammatory).

So, does anyone want to ask why the vast majority of searches for "Bloomberg" originate in Turkey, Singapore, and Hong Kong? Seems odd that interest in the term would be low enough in the US to place it outside the top 10. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=bloomberg,bitcoin

What's stranger is that the trends for 'Bloomberg' Turkey don't match any surrounding countries (that I checked), and outside Singapore and China, relative volume has dropped over the past few years, especially in Asia. https://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=bloomberg&t...

Maybe it's the conspiracy nut in me, but if I was a conservative financial news source and I saw a lot of interest in a totally new financial system that I don't understand (or have influence over), I'd be afraid, too. I mean, if the search interest in bitcoin was showing strength in those new markets I just spent cultivating, I'd probably downplay it too. But that's probably not what's happening... https://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=bitcoin&t=w... Or it totally is.

So, is the fad of Bloomberg fading? Nah, they've been consistently low for years, and everyone loves a 0 growth business. Is Bloomberg about to collapse? Hopefully.

Fucking dinosaurs, man. The worst part about them is having to hear their death moans from miles away.

This is good........ for Bitcoin

I, for one, welcome this "cooling down" of the hype.

Lagging indicator.

"Trough of disillusionment."

The ratchet up since 2016 certainly does not have me disillusioned.

It's a standard phase in the adoption of any technology. It usually goes: initial interest (run up), hype phase (often accompanied by bubble), hype peak (bubble gets absurd), disillusionment (often accompanied by crash), then gradual renewal of interest and "plateau of enlightenment."

Cryptocurrency is still in its hype phase but there are signs that it's ending. When it does expect a loss of interest and possibly a crash in value, though the latter may not occur as much as people expect due to the weird behavior of illiquid or thinly traded assets and the deflationary nature of most existing cryptocurrencies.

The plateau of enlightenment will come as people figure out new ways to scale cryptocurrencies and adapt them to different use cases in the real world.

Their current use cases of financial fraud, gambling, and crime are actually not uncommon. The military and criminals are generally early adopters of new technology, and things like gambling and porn are often early use cases. Sober mainstream "enterprise" users generally stay away from new technologies until they reach their plateau of enlightenment and are thus well understood and reliable.

Who's implying that causal relationship when the contrary is just as likely?

I hope cryptocurrencies are done. I need to buy a video card.

Have you tried contacting the manufacturer of the video card you want? Sometimes they have wait lists you can opt into.

They are soooo receptive when you tell them you are just buying one.

Yea, I'm on the waitlist for all the good it does me.

It looks like the higher end graphics cards are available new for no less than ~3x their MSRP. Everything else is sold out. In all seriousness, the cheapest option is to buy a pre-built computer and throw out everything but the GPU. It's insanity, and I can't wait for this fad to be over.

Duh. Nobody is using cryptocurreny in any significant quantities except criminals on the dark web. The only thing sustaining value in cryptocurrencies is investment speculation.

If investors cannot sell shares then there is nothing left for it. Investors must be able to advertise interest, any way they can, to entice other people to buys their shares otherwise it is just a retail souvenir.

EDIT:

I can see this post is irritating people. Please respond with an example of people using cyptocurrecy to make legitimate purchases in any valid quantities.

I will bite, despite suspecting that this is a useless argument to wade into :). What do you consider "valid quantities?"

Do you know of a population segment that makes more than 10% of their monthly purchases in cryptocurrency alone or a major business that receives a greater than 10% revenue from cryptocurrency?

I have heard of people on here living in silicon valley who claim to purchase occasional drinks with cryptocurrency, but I have not heard of practical or regular expenditures with cryptocurrency or anybody that I know offline who uses it for any kind of expense.

CryptoKitties ? 12 MILLION in 2017, all in Ethereum / ETH.

> CryptoKitties, the Ethereum-based digital kitten collectibles game, has processed more than $12 million in sales on its decentralized marketplace.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/cryptokitties-sales-hit-12-mi...

Also, a story on their revenue model => https://medium.com/@codetractio/a-look-into-cryptokitties-re...

I purchased a laptop on Newegg last year using Bitcoin. Expedia takes Bitcoin as a payment method. Both of these are practical (and in some cases regular) expenditures.

At https://chunkhost.com about 25% of our revenue per month has been in Bitcoin since 2014.

Since the price spike it's actually increased to more like 40% (from new accounts, not old ones switching away from credit cards or Paypal).

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