- Searches for ‘Bitcoin’ and ‘crypto’ are down on Google and Naver.
- Fear and Greed indices show investors are still worried about price drops.
- Expert says 2026 will see Bitcoin prices rise as part of ‘10-year grind.’
Popular interest in Bitcoin and crypto is bottoming out as the year’s end approaches, search engine data indicates.
The podcaster and crypto advocate Mario Nawfal wrote on X that there is “close to no retail interest in crypto right now.”
“None of my normie friends or family ask me anything about crypto anymore,” Nawfal wrote, posting a screenshot of a chart showing a sharp drop in Google searches for the term “crypto.”
The drop in interest coincides with sluggish Bitcoin price performance and dashed hopes of a “Santa rally” on the markets over Christmas.
‘Normies’ losing interest
Google’s Google Trends data hub records search interest changes on a scale from zero to 100. At the time of writing, global searches for “Bitcoin” stand at just 19, a six-month low, and just a single point above 2025’s low of 18, recorded in mid-June.
Searches for “crypto” have also crashed from over 50 at the start of the month to just 25 on December 28.
Evidence suggests the trend is not limited to Google. In South Korea, where Naver is the dominant search engine, similar trends have taken root.
On a similar 0-100 scale, Naver searches for “Bitcoin” have dropped from a mid-month high of 46 to just 15 on December 28, with “cryptocurrency” experiencing a similar slump.
Other indicators make equally grim reading, with CoinMarketCap’s Fear and Greed Index, a market sentiment measurement tool, locked firmly in the “fear” zone.
Another Fear and Greed Index, run by South Korea’s Upbit Data Lab, meanwhile, shows sentiment hovering between the “Fear” and “Neutral” ranges.
Memecoin hype fades
Nawfal said that memecoin losses have taken their toll on retail investors’ confidence.
“Do we need to start pumping the dino coins again to get retail to come back?” Nawfal mused. “After the Trump/Melania memecoin drama, it seems that retail lost a lot of faith in the space.”
Official Trump, a coin introduced by US President Donald Trump, has seen its market cap slump from a January high of over $9 billion to under $1 billion in late December. Official Melania, the First Lady’s coin, has fared no better.
But, in an interview with CNBC, Matt Hougan, the chief investment officer of the crypto investment provider Bitwise Asset Management, said Bitcoin was likely to bounce back in the long term, and that the first signs of recovery would emerge next year.
“I think the four-year [Bitcoin price] cycle is being replaced by a 10-year grind,” Hougan said. “I mean, there are big new forces in the world.”
These forces, he explained, were the emergence of crypto exchange-traded funds, progressive regulation in the US, and “the growth of stablecoins and tokenisation.”
“I think those forces are bigger and stronger than the forces that historically caused the four-year cycle,” Hougan said. “So, specifically, I expect the market to be up next year.”
However, the Bitwise executive warned that meteoric price rises were unlikely in 2026. “It’s not spectacular returns,” he said. “[More like] strong returns, lower volatility, [with] some ups and downs.”
Tim Alper is a news correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email at tdalper@dlnews.com.
