2018 is almost coming to its end, which means numerous “looking back at the past 12 months” leads around the Internet — and Google is not an exception here.
The company released its annual “Year in Search” lists today — considering, among others, the most trending search topics beginning with the words “How to” (or the biggest questions users had during this year). You can check it here.
And what were two out of 10 of the most popular searches in this category in the US? “How to buy Bitcoin” and “How to buy Ripple”. Both searches witnessed a spike in search traffic compared to last year — however, and unfortunately, just in the beginning of the year.
Millions of Americans (namely in Hawaii, Nevada and DC, where searches were most popular) wanted to know how to buy Bitcoin in January, which skyrocketed to $19,843 apiece in Dec 2017. Unfortunately Bitcoin did not keep the upward trend felt in the end of last year and plummeted consistently throughout 2018 — and so did the searches. Today, almost a year after Bitcoin’s biggest record, the cryptocurrency is worth a little over $3,000.
And Ripple shared a similar experience. The cryptocurrency value increased significantly by the end of 2017 (it was, indeed, the cryptocurrency with the best price performance last year) — side by side with a surge in interest and searches (most popular in California, New York and New Jersey). Nevertheless, its value plunged and the public attention faded. Today, a XRP (Ripple’s token) is worth around $0,30. It surpassed $3 in 2017.
Will crypto figure again in Google’s “Year in Search” in the future? The chart above is pretty clear: interest decreased tremendously. Still, estimates differ largely among experts and analysts — and one must remember this market is in its early stages. Anything can happen.
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