Bitcoin Search Interest YTD – Highest in South Africa, Lowest in Japan

Bitcoin Search Interest in South Africa Is 2X US

The US dominates the markets for Bitcoin in terms of trading volume, number of exchanges, ICOs and other such blockchain-related statistics. However, many wouldn’t know that it falls behind in search interest. Japan is also highly ranked amongst the most crypto-friendly nations. But, when it comes to search interest on Google, both these countries fall far behind lesser developed nations like South Africa and Ghana. Google Trends data reveals that, so far in 2018 (YTD as of September 3rd, 2018), South Africa leads ‘Bitcoin’ search interest. Ghana stands second with Slovenia third.

South Africa 100 vs US 52 vs Japan 2

Google Trends ranked these nations on the basis of a scoring system on a scale from 0 to 100. Here, 100 is the location with the most popularity as a fraction of total searches in that region. Similarly, 50 indicates a region with half the popularity. Regions with not enough data for the term are assigned a value of 0.

South Africa, with a 100 score commands almost double the search interest of the term ‘Bitcoin’ in the US, where the score stands at 52. Ghana is second with 75 along with Slovenia (also at 75). Japan scored the lowest, with just 2 points. Other prominent nations such as Switzerland, the UK, and Hong Kong, scored 59, 44, and 37 respectively. Saudi Arabia scored 13 and Russia 7.

In the beginning of the year, we highlighted how Bitcoin bulls against the dollar doves indicate an opportunity for Africa to lead the case for implementing Bitcoin as a global reserve currency. In April, we highlighted 4 of the many use cases where blockchain is already transforming Africa. The bottom line is that the African continent does hold a lot of potential and promise for blockchain and its flagship cryptocurrency, Bitcoin.

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