Ethereum Searches Are on Its Highest Level Since Early 2018

Ethereum is on fire! And no, we are not talking just about the price. The number of searches about Ethereum and ETH is rising so fast that it can only be compared to early 2018.

According to data from Google Trends, Americans have been eagerly researching about Ethereum more and more every day since October 2020. The popularity of Ethereum has reached a yearly high, led by Washington DC, California, and New York.

Things are very similar in the rest of the world. The growth in Ethereum’s popularity is remarkable, and the number of searches has surpassed the 2020 and 2019 levels with a higher density of queries in —sit tight— Kosovo, Macedonia, and Nigeria.

Everything seems to follow the behavior of the general markets. Interest in Bitcoin is peaking too, and other altcoins are also emerging in Google Trends.

Ethereum has good reasons to spark interest.

Several reasons may explain this surge. The first, of course, is the price of ETH: The second-largest cryptocurrency by marketcap is going through a bullish cycle, conquering levels similar to those of 2 years ago.

And although it is still far from touching its ATH, there is already much speculation about the future of Ethereum on the charts.

Another reason is the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade. This is undoubtedly one of the most critical events in the entire crypto ecosystem. Ethereum is the infrastructure where almost all DeFis, and most of the dapps, NFTs, and other types of products run.

#Ethereum 2.0 deposit contract stats

– Total value staked: 423,200 ETH
– Validators: 12,575
– Phase 0 staking goal: 80.7%

Still 12 hours left to reach the goal of 524,288 ETH required to launch the Beacon Chain on Dec 1st.

Chart: https://t.co/EK4PNxBmSG pic.twitter.com/3582vvkZ2e

— glassnode (@glassnode) November 23, 2020

Upgrading to Ethereum 2.0 would decongest the network and make it more scalable.

And thirdly, the general interest after the adoption of institutional clients. Just as an example, PayPal announced support for Ethereum transactions and described the blockchain in a controversial but exciting way.

The contact of nocoiners with events and news about this blockchain could have sparked their interest.

Is there a correlation between prices and interest?

Although there is no scientific evidence to determine any causal relationship between the two, the facts —albeit circumstantial— seem to point to it. Generally, an increase in prices coincides with an increase in searches, and a fall in prices tends to coincide with a decrease in interest in Google.

However, we are still in a phase comparable to the chicken-and-egg problem: What happens first? It is difficult to say if an increase in interest in Ethereum causes a subsequent bullish trend or if people actually search for Ethereum after learning of the price increase.

However, Google’s projections could be useful for traders. It is currently expected that the interest in searches will continue to increase. If so, even if it is unknown what is causing this boom, the price may follow the same trend if the past repeats itself.