Bitcoin: The Cryptocurrency That Has Proved Elusive Even to the Infinite Google

Blog
Raymond Burdge
December 29, 2020

Google has almost everything

Just Google “Bitcoin”; well, even before a query could be typed fully, Google starts throwing out all relevant results, kind of reading the human mind. And is bitcoin an exception? Probably “Yes” in most cases and “No” in certain cases. Google offers nearly everything there is to about Bitcoins:

Its history (origin, development)
Its geography (mining regions, worldwide distribution)
Its physics (the technology)
Its chemistry (the e-waste problem)
Its math (action mechanism)
Its politics (expert analysis, opinions, and predictions, and case Studies with real-world examples)

Bitcoins’ Popularity Analyzed via Google Trends

The relationship between the two phenomena of modern times cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin) and search queries on Google Trends not only show that the prices and search queries are interlinked but that there also exists a distinct asymmetry between the impact of soaring interest in the currency and its trend value. Google Trends shows a considerable jump by 183% in the searches for bitcoins over the last four weeks, with the United States reaching a 30-day high on March 13, 2020. Also, there was an increase in the number of people looking for information on digital currencies on mobile devices.

Google Trends data on the Bitcoin Value(Popularity): Interest Overtime(April 14, 2019, to April 11, 2020)
April 14–20, 2019	33
May 12–18, 2019	73
June 23–29, 2019	100
August 4–10, 2019	55
September 22–28, 2019	47
December 15–21, 2019	36
January 5–11, 2020	43
February 9–15, 2020	48
March 15–21, 2020	75
April 5–11, 2020	48

Interest by Region Top 10(April 9, 2019, to April 9, 2020)
Nigeria	100
Austria	55
Switzerland	50
South Africa	50
Ghana	47
The Netherlands	42
Germany	41
Bermuda	34
Brazil	32
Singapore	32

This is quite a big list. Other countries’ data are Australia (32), Canada (28), the United States (25), the United Kingdom (24), and India (10). The least interesting region is Japan (1).

If the one thing that Google Trend charts teach about bitcoins’ popularity is the volatile nature of the cryptocurrency price that decides its ups and downs in the world market. And, not all countries favor bitcoins.

Thoughts from an economist

Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller opined that it is the mystery element in the narrative (i.e., Satoshi’s secret identity) that has helped bitcoin grow in popularity. He also elaborated that ideas of anarchism and government unnecessaries too fed into the success of Bitcoins and that people loved the idea of a financial system that is beyond the government’s reach. It strikes them as exciting and gives complete autonomy over their funds. He also linked the emotions present in today’s crypto narratives with that of between gold and money.

Shiller compared bitcoins to dinosaurs stating that the cryptocurrency would be extinct in 100 years’ time though he agreed that bitcoins were an amazing social phenomenon.

How Bitcoins Tackle Google

Bitcoin Mining

The Process of adding transaction records to the blockchain that requires specialized computers.
Google can teach about BTC mining, but only BTC miners can confirm bitcoin transactions and provide security.
Without miners, the system could be attacked and become dysfunctional since only the former can solve computational problems that enable them to chain transaction blocks together. Plus, BTC mining is a highly specialized industry and is done with delicate machines in large warehouses. Though not physically taxing, it still requires substantial manual labor.

Pseudonymous founder

Google is still scratching its head about the name of BTC creator Satoshi Nakamoto. Does it belong to an individual or a group? With no major names alluded to Nakamoto’s identity or no actions linking BTC holdings to his account, it remains a mystery to this day.

Overall, the bitcoin market is as shaky as the traditional one on any given day, but its ability to stabilize quicker is what makes it an interesting system.