The BTC price has an 80.8 percent correlation to internet searches for bitcoin. That could be good news for future price movements.
Olga Andrienko, head of global marketing at SEMrush, found a strong correlation between the two, telling MarketWatch:
“We also identified that there’s an 80.8% correlation ratio between Google searches and bitcoin price.”
The correlation suggests bitcoin is currently in a healthy position. Between June 19 and June 26, bitcoin searches rose more than 158 percent. That coincided with a jump from the $9,100 mark up to a high of $13,782.
The price of bitcoin reached $11,865 on CoinMarketCap at the time of writing, an eight percent increase over the past 24 hours but slightly below its week-long high achieved on Wednesday. The cryptocurrency is still well above its year-long low point of below $3,400 in February.
Tipping Point: Bitcoin Google Searches Trump Kim Kardashian https://t.co/ZvoJBXmgcZ
— CCN Markets (@CCNMarkets) June 28, 2019
Bitcoin’s Price Matches With Searches
Jumps in bitcoin searches have indicated previous bumps in interest. In May, searches climbed to a 13-month high after a CBS 60 Minutes special shone a light on cryptocurrency. The episode saw Anderson Cooper trying to understand what a cryptocurrency actually is and Ann Silvio come to grips with the story behind Satoshi Nakamoto. Following the May 19 episode, which scored 8.2 million viewers, searches spiked in countries like South Africa and the Netherlands.
Google searches for “what is bitcoin” ranked among the top questions of 2018. That surge was largely driven by searches in January 2018, when the crypto market was still experiencing record highs. Data shows these searches dropped off dramatically for the rest of the year.
This relationship has continued into the recent price spike. Searches for bitcoin nearly doubled this month versus the start of the year. It’s still a far cry from its December 2017 peak, currently claiming about one-fourth the search traffic:
However, “CoinStreetNews” noted that the recent surge has now overtaken the number of searches during the 2013 bubble.
Not Just Google Showing Surges
Beyond Google, interest in bitcoin is rising. Baidu, a search engine popular in China, has seen a jump in searches for the cryptocurrency in recent days. Economist and trader Alex Kruger found that the price correlated with Baidu searches during the April and May gradual breakouts:
“Both interest in bitcoin in China (as measured by Baidu Trends) and in the World (as measured by Google Trends) increased similarly and on the same dates.”
As interest gradually rises worldwide, it seems bitcoin is gradually overtaking searches in other areas – even household names like Kim Kardashian.