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From Google Trends, examining some crypto searches, you discover some anomalous data, almost certainly wrong.
The problem lies specifically in the geolocation of searches.
Summary
Google Trends and crypto searches: The anomalous data on Bitcoin
In the crypto field, the most searched research on Google is related to Bitcoin.
Regarding Google searches for the word Bitcoin worldwide, in the last 12 months the country leading in search volume is El Salvador, according to Google Trends.
Although this already seems like a very anomalous fact, given that El Salvador has only 6 million inhabitants (50 times less than the USA), in second place there is Nigeria and in third place Switzerland.
The USA wouldn’t even be among the top five countries in the world for searching the word Bitcoin in the last 12 months worldwide.
However, at least as far as El Salvador is concerned, there would be a reason: there Bitcoin is legal tender, along with the US dollar.
The data from Nigeria could also make sense, considering that the country has over 200 million inhabitants.
Switzerland in third place instead appears more than anomalous. It is a country with 8 million inhabitants, and in which only in some specific areas (Lugano and Zug) there is some form of support for Bitcoin from the authorities.
Switzerland has six cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants, and in none of these it appears that the authorities explicitly support the use of Bitcoin. Lugano has just under 100,000 inhabitants, while Zug has only 30,000.
As if that were not enough, if Brazil is in fourth place in that ranking, which has more or less the same number of inhabitants as Nigeria, in fifth place there are the Netherlands which do not reach 18 million inhabitants.
The fact that Slovenia is in sixth place, with only 2 million inhabitants, makes it clear that those data are incorrect. The United States of America would be in 28th place.
By focusing the research only on the last 30 days, Slovenia even rises to third place, with Nigeria and Brazil dropping out of the top 5.
The absurd data on cryptocurrencies on Google Trends
But there is worse.
Examining global searches for the word crypto reveals completely nonsensical data.
It should be noted, however, that crypto does not only mean cryptocurrencies, but nevertheless those data remain meaningless.
In fact, the “nation” with the most Google searches in the last 12 months for the word crypto would be Saint Helena.
Saint Helena is not even a State, because it is a British overseas territory belonging to the United Kingdom of Great Britain. The island has less than 5,000 inhabitants, so it is absolutely impossible that such a small number of people have conducted all those researches.
However, this could be explained by the research conducted through VPN.
Crypto is a term that obviously also has to do with cryptography, and it is possible that those who deal with cryptography prefer to browse the web anonymously, or at least not tracked.
So it’s plausible that they use VPNs, and one of the things VPNs do is hide users’ real IP address by replacing it with a fake one.
For example, if many VPNs used fake IP addresses that Google Trends interprets as addresses of machines located in Saint Helena, these absurd data would be explained.
Indeed, in second place there is the usual Nigeria, but in fourth place there is the tiny Singapore, which however has 5 million inhabitants.
In the last thirty days, Nigeria rises to first place, but Slovenia rises to third place, just like Bitcoin.
Other absurd data
However, there are also other absurd data that make these data seemingly meaningless.
For example, by choosing “cryptocurrencies” as the research topic instead of a specific keyword, Saint Helena has always been in the first place in the last 12 months.
This seems to suggest that it is not so much cryptography enthusiasts who use VPNs, but rather users interested in cryptocurrencies.
But the other positions appear totally inexplicable.
Indeed, in second place there is Laos, and in third place Iran.
As for Iran, which has almost 90 million inhabitants, there could also be some explanation, since Iranians may want to understand how to circumvent international sanctions, but as for the small Laos, which has only 7 million inhabitants, there seems to be no explanation at all.
Restricting the search to the last 30 months, Iran takes the lead ahead of Nigeria, with Slovenia in third place.
The role of memecoins
By examining Google Trends’ so-called “related queries,” it becomes clear that most of the attention actually concerns meme coins.
There are two meme coins in particular that absolutely dominate the ranking of associated queries: PEPE and BOME.
Pepe has been around for just under a year, so it is still a relatively new meme coin and maybe not very well known.
Book of Meme ($BOME) was launched just a few days ago, so many are now looking for what it is.
Even regarding Bitcoin searches, the second associated query in the last 12 months turns out to be Pepe.
So it is possible to imagine that those who still do this type of research on Google are not those who follow Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies, but total beginners who approach this world maybe for the first time in the dream of earning a lot of money in a short time by betting on a meme coin.
And it is also likely that this happens especially in less developed countries, so much so that these are the ones that dominate the rankings of crypto and cryptocurrencies research.