The market has experienced a good proportion of chaotic occurrences this year, and while Bitcoin still reigns supreme, there seem to be some surprises in terms of popularity in 2022.
The Federal Reserve’s efforts to combat inflation have increased selling pressure on the cryptocurrency market, which has led to the collapse of major VC firms like 3AC and FTX as well as crypto platforms like Terra and Celsius Network.
What cryptocurrency were most looked up in 2022?
Notably, the market value of all cryptocurrencies combined has decreased 70% YTD to close to $770 billion, indicating massive surrenders on the part of both traders and investors.
The most recent Accenture 2022 Global Consumer Payments research demonstrates that despite the market meltdown in 2022, customer interest in cryptocurrencies is still robust. Long-term investments (28%), curiosity (22%), short-term speculation (21%), and other factors are among the responses’ stated motivations.
Separate research conducted by personal finance website DollarGeek focuses on the top cryptocurrencies expected to receive global searches in 2022, providing a general idea of what retail gamers may buy in as we approach 2023.
Top 10 cryptocurrencies according to monthly searches in the US and worldwide. Source: DollarGeek
Google searches for Bitcoin continue to dominate
In 2022, according to data by DollarGeek, Bitcoin will be the cryptocurrency with the most global monthly searches (28.41 million).
Experts continue to evaluate its quality in comparison to other crypto assets on the market, maintaining a relatively high level of interest. Due to its top-brand reputation and the fact that it is unmatched in terms of decentralization, Bitcoin is still by far the most sought cryptocurrency in 2022.
Interest in the search term “Bitcoin” over the last 12 months. Source: Google Trends
Dogecoin comes in second
Dogecoin is second only to Bitcoin with an average of 5.85 million searches per month worldwide in 2022.
The meme-cryptocurrency was in the news mostly due to Elon Musk who purchased Twitter and teased his followers with the idea of integrating DOGE payments for in-app payments. Elon previously referred to himself as “The Dogefather,” and is regarded as the most influential proponent of Dogecoin, shaking up the cryptocurrency industry with his humorous tweets.
DOGE also gained traction after getting listed on Robinhood, a U.S.-based commission-free trading platform.
Interest in the search term “Dogecoin” over the last 12 months. Source: Google Trends
Third place goes to Shiba Inu
4.43 million people throughout the world searched for Shiba Inu in a given month. Even still, the meme coin outperformed Dogecoin in the United States, with 1.29 million monthly searches to DOGE’s 729,000.
Despite Shiba Inu’s less favorable price development in 2022 when compared to Dogecoin. Due to its entrance into the metaverse and the potential release of Shibarium, Shiba Inu’s Ethereum layer-2 blockchain, SHIB is down over 75% YTD but is still making headlines.
The Merge propels Ethereum to take the fourth spot
Despite the cryptocurrency’s price dropping 67% YTD, Ethereum is still the fourth-most-searched term globally in 2022 with 3.84 million monthly searches.
Due to its transition to proof-of-stake (PoS) from proof-of-work (PoW) via the Merge, the second-largest blockchain by market size remained in the news throughout the year. Notably, when the PoS changeover occurred in September, interest in the keyword “Ethereum” and associated terms like “Ethereum 2.0” and “Merge” spiked.
Internet searches for Ethereum may have increased as a result of worries that the PoS upgrade has turned the cryptocurrency into a security. Paxful, a cryptocurrency exchange, just stopped supporting ETH for the same reasons.
The fifth-most popular crypto related search term is Cardano
Cardano is the fifth-most googled cryptocurrency globally, receiving 1.47 million monthly searches on average in 2022.
Particularly in January 2022, when ADA outpaced Bitcoin and Ether in price, the Cardano trend gained traction. Later, though, despite the Vasil hard fork in September failing to spark a surge in interest, searches have been decreasing.
