Gone are the days when there used to be just a few Bitcoin institutional investors in the market, as the narrative seems to be changing sooner than expected.
With bitcoin going past $15,000 in the last few days for the first time since January 2018, many would think retail investors fueled the recent surge, but that’s not the case.
Crypto enthusiasts had attributed the recent surge to retail investors and the fear of missing out (FOMO), especially from investors who missed out on the 2017 bull run.
However, recent Google trends data, which provides an insight used to measure public opinion on a particular topic or keyword, suggest that the amount of “Bitcoin” searches in the last five years on the platform has dropped massively.
Google searches for BTC usually increase following a bull run, but this time around, the value has been far from impressive. For Bitcoin, the rise in value determines retail investors’ interests in the assets.
Topics or keywords searched on Google are measured on a scale of 0 to 100, depending on the number of searches a particular keyword gets within a period.
According to the stat, the amount of searches for Bitcoin between November 1, 2020, to November 7, 2020, is just 13, which is way lower than its all-time high of 90 recorded between December 3 and 9, 2017.
By implication, it shows that the amount of retail investors for BTC is gradually declining despite the huge milestone the asset has achieved in recent times.
Institutional investors flock BTC
With retail investors on the decline, institutional investors have continued to flock to the market, seeking solace from the asset as the world tries to recover from the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Between August and September, publicly-traded business intelligence and software company MicroStrategy acquired 38,250 BTC (valued at $425 million at the time) as part of its cash reserve.
In a similar development, payment processing company Square revealed that it purchased 4,709 BTC ($50 million at the time) as a primary reserve asset while predicting a mass adoption for the cryptocurrency.
Meanwhile, with bitcoin trading above $15,500, publicly traded companies like Square and MicroStrategy that purchased bitcoin in the last couple of months when the asset was trading around $10,000 are seating on more than 45% profit.
