According to Google analytics, interest in cryptocurrencies is 16.6% lower this year than it was on average for 2021. worldwide. This year, the price of bitcoin has fallen by 52.7 percent, and the industry has also seen layoffs and liquidations. The Netherlands has had the greatest decline in interest, dropping by 37 percent.
With interest surging 592 percent after their government declared Bitcoin to be legal cash in April, the Central African Republic defies the trend. The interest in Morocco and Kenya, two more African nations, has impressively increased year over year by 61 percent and 55 percent, respectively.
Though there has been a slump, developing nations’ interest in cryptocurrencies has remained stronger than that of the industrialized world in many cases this year.
In 2022, the cryptocurrency market took a severe downward turn. The price of bitcoin, which is notoriously volatile, is now 52 percent lower than the $47,700 level it traded at on New Year’s Day.
But more than just costs have fluctuated. Major participants have been liquidated as the virus spread. The most notable example of this is the May collapse of the previous top 10 coin Luna and the subsequent death spiral of its companion stablecoin UST. Other examples include the bankruptcy filings of crypto lenders Celsius and Voyager Digital.
Sadly, layoffs have spread throughout the sector as well. None was more well-known than Coinbase, which fired 1,110 workers, or 18% of its workforce, just a few months after spending millions on a Super Bowl advertisement.
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So, we wondered if the end of the bull market mania had caused interest to decline globally this year. If true, which nations have lost the most interest in cryptocurrency?
Interest in Crypto will Decline More
16.6 percent is a significant decline in interest rates worldwide. The worst-performing country is the Netherlands, which has seen a startling loss of 37 percent. Its European peers, Ireland and New Zealand, have seen decreases of 30 percent and 28 percent, respectively.
The USA comes in second, obviously, with a decline of more than 26% from the search volume in 2021. The fact that the US continues to account for such a sizable portion of market volumes symbolizes how different the market is now compared to last year, placing the recent price decline and layoffs into context.
Surprisingly, underdeveloped countries like Morocco, Kenya, and Sri Lanka are among the most resilient nations interested in cryptocurrencies. Colombia and Nigeria are two nations where interest has risen the most recently. The two African nations of Kenya and Morocco have had increases of 61 and 55 percent, respectively.
Over the past month, interest has decreased even further
Since Terra’s bankruptcy in May, the bear market has truly taken off, and as a result, the past few months have been awful. The falloff is significantly severe when comparing July-only falloffs to the entire year 2022. According to the global average, there have been 63% fewer searches for cryptocurrencies this month than in August 2022.
The nations that have experienced the greatest decline in interest include New Zealand, Spain, Venezuela, and — perhaps shockingly — the United States and Canada. US search volume has decreased by 59%, and Canada is not far behind at 58%.
South America
Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, frequently tweets that his country is “buying the dip” when Bitcoin is falling in value. It seems that the people in his nation, where Bitcoin has been accepted as legal cash since last year, have different views.
According to Google search statistics, El Salvador experienced the largest drop in Bitcoin interest in July relative to 2021 numbers. Given the inevitable surge in searches when Bukele declared it legal tender in 2021, a drop of some kind was to be expected. However, a drop of 63 percent is alarming and emphasizes both the negative impact of the bear market and the difficulties in introducing Bitcoin to the populace in El Salvador.
Overall, interest declined 17.9% percent in 2022 compared to 2021, which is a significant decline but not nearly as sharp as the drop of 64% that occurred in July.
Africa
For scale, one country was omitted from the graphs above. And the reason for this is that the Central African Republic completely outperforms such figures. Compared to July of 2021, interest in cryptocurrencies increased by 715 percent (792 percent for all of 2022).
Naturally, this is because, in April, they became the second country to recognize Bitcoin as legal cash. Furthermore, they announced tokenizing the nation’s abundant resources (oil, uranium, and diamonds) using the recently launched cryptocurrency “Sango Coin.”
However, with barely 10% of the population having access to the Internet in one of the poorest nations in the world, it remains to be seen whether this is a wise move.
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