It is fair to say many did not expect the crypto market to crash as it did in Spring 2022. Many were hopeful that by the end of the year, Bitcoin (BTC) may have reached a new all time high, after breaking its previous record in late 2021. However, this is unlikely to be the case as experts now believe the crypto will be lucky to be worth over $20,000 as we roll into 2023. But has BTC’s poor performance impacted the general attitude towards cryptocurrencies? Saxo Bank releases findings suggesting this isn’t the case.
A new study undertaken by Saxo Bank has analysed Google Trends data from across the world to find out what the globe is asking about the state of world crypto in 2022. This study was conducted before the crypto market slump that has characterised the spring of 2022, and the ongoing market turmoil will likely impact the future behaviour of investors around the world, as is discussed in the next section.
The research which looked at search data from the past year, looked at countries most asked questions when it comes to cryptocurrencies to decipher exactly where the global population stand with the digital currency, which coins are they the most interested in and who is actively looking to trade them.
When looking at global search volume regarding all crypto-related queries the United States lead the global interest with 8.21 per cent of all queries coming from the US, this is closely followed by United Kingdom with 8.10 per cent, Canada with 7.31 per cent, India 6.91 per cent and Australia with 5.97 per cent.
When it comes to the different cryptocurrencies, the data revealed that BTC is taking a bit of a backseat in the American market, with searches for Solana (SOL) (18.75 per cent) and Ethereum (ETH) (14.89 per cent) coming out higher than BTC (14.29 per cent).
The study also looked into the rise of NFTs and discovered that Americans still don’t quite understand them, despite their roster of celebrity owners, ranking 100 when it comes to ‘what are NFTs’ search popularity. They were also the country that showed the most concern when it comes to their environmental impact and energy consumption, ranking the highest out of all territories for queries related to the topic.
Saxo also looked into the most popular coins globally and Dogecoin (DOGE) leads the pack with 18.56 per cent of the globe’s search volume, this is followed by NFT’s with 15.74 per cent, and ETH 15.71 per cent. BTC isn’t far from the bottom with only 5.74 per cent of searches.
Top 20 Countries Most Interested in Cryptocurrencies:
Rank | Country | Percentage of search queries |
1 | United States | 8.21% |
2 | United Kingdom | 8.10% |
3 | Canada | 7.13% |
4 | India | 6.91% |
5 | Australia | 5.97% |
6 | Philippines | 3.10% |
7 | Singapore | 3.04% |
8 | Netherlands | 3.04% |
9 | Germany | 2.98% |
10 | Nigeria | 2.50% |
11 | Malaysia | 2.22% |
12 | United Arab Emirates | 2.13% |
13 | South Africa | 2.10% |
14 | Ireland | 1.93% |
15 | France | 1.82% |
16 | Pakistan | 1.73% |
17 | Italy | 1.56% |
18 | Indonesia | 1.53% |
19 | Turkey | 1.48% |
20 | Spain | 1.48% |
Most Searched For Cryptocurrency:
Rank | Currency | Percentage of search queries |
1 | Dogecoin | 18.56% |
2 | NFT | 15.74% |
3 | Ethereum | 15.71% |
4 | Shiba | 10.12% |
5 | XRP | 6.28% |
6 | Bitcoin | 5.74% |
7 | Solana | 4.92% |
8 | TRON TRX | 3.75% |
9 | Cardano | 3.47% |
10 | Tether | 2.22% |
11 | Crypto Fiat | 1.48% |
12 | Binance Coin | 1.45% |
13 | Crypto Moon | 1.39% |
14 | Crypto Airdrop | 1.28% |
15 | Blockchain | 1.17% |
16 | Initial Coin Offering | 1.14% |
17 | Coinbase | 1.14% |
18 | Terra Luna | 0.60% |
19 | Crypto Token | 0.60% |
20 | Crypto Mining | 0.57% |
Coming into 2022, analysts believed Bitcoin would be worth $65,000 by the end of the year. Now predictions are closer to $20,000
Continuing to uncover differing attitudes towards BTC, Finder compares investors’ initial 2022 BTC predictions to their most recent ones in its Bitcoin Price Predictions report, finding most still believe the cryptocurrency has room to fall, ultimately suggesting things are likely to get worse before they get better.
Finder’s panel of 53 cryptocurrency and Web3 industry specialists think BTC is set to bottom out at $13,676 on average in 2022 before ending the year at $25,473.
Morpher‘s CEO, Martin Froehler, thinks BTC will sink to $12,000 before recovering to $40,000 by the end of the year.
“It’s reasonable to expect to see more big projects fail in the next couple of months. The retail sentiment is at historic lows due to global economic uncertainty and inflation. Highly leveraged miners, who just had to digest the China exodus, will capitulate and increase the downside pressure even more. We will see even lower Bitcoin prices.”
Bitcoin’s downturn is reflective of the broader market, with 77 per cent of panelists saying we’re officially in a ‘crypto winter’. The biggest driver behind the crypto crash is global interest rate hikes, according to 70 per cent of panelists. This is followed by Terra LUNA’s collapse (68 per cent), tightening of balance sheets by central banks (47 per cent), and rising inflation (40 per cent).
However just how long the crypto winter will last is up for debate. Only 29 per cent think the market will recover this year, while 46 per cent say it will last until 2023 and 24 per cent say it’ll last until 2024 or even later.
Senior lecturer at the University of Brighton, Paul Levy thinks the crypto winter will last until the second half of 2023 and thinks BTC will end 2022 at $15,000.
“Bitcoin will likely bounce back in 2023 which may actually lead to inflated expectations and further instability. Much of course depends on world events such as the war in Ukraine and its own ongoing impact on global confidence,” he said.
Arcane Research analyst, Vetle Lunde, thinks BTC will bottom out at $13,000 and end the year at $20,000.
“A myriad of negative forces has crushed the strength of bitcoin…. further tightening and unwinding of bad crypto debts will create sobering times onwards, and investors should buckle up for more difficulty.”
The panel’s average price predictions for BTC have dropped dramatically this year. In April, the panel expected Bitcoin would be worth $65,185 by year-end – meaning the average prediction has dropped by 61 per cent in just a few months.
While still significant, the 2025 and 2030 price predictions have declined less dramatically and are still well above bitcoin’s all-time high of nearly $70,000.
In April this year, the panel thought BTC would be worth $179,280 by 2025 and $420,240 by 2030. Today they expect BTC will be worth $106,757 by 2025 and $314,314 by 2030 – representing a drop of 40 per cent and 25 per cent respectively.
With bullish longer term price predictions, 50 per cent of Finder’s panel now say it’s time to buy BTC (down from 67 per cent in April) with 40 per cent saying it’s time to hold and 10 per cent sell.
However, the panel is divided on the role of BTC. 42 per cent classify BTC as a risk asset and another 42 per cent as store of value, with the remaining 15 per cent saying they classify it as neither.
Digital Capital Management‘s managing director, Ben Ritchie, thinks BTC is a store of value and will be worth $200,000 by 2025 and $400,000 by 2030. He says BTC can be used as an inflation hedge but on a much longer time scale than gold or other asset classes.
ByteTree chief investment officer, Charles Morris, thinks BTC is a risk asset but still thinks it will be worth $250,000 by 2030.
“BTC is almost a pure risk asset, almost opposite to gold which is long-term risk-free.”
A handful of panellists including University of Sussex professor of finance, Carol Alexander, think BTC will eventually shrink in value.
“Unlike many other established crypto assets, btc is purely speculative. It has no utility value for the development of Web 3.0,” she said.
