What does the world know about cryptocurrencies? [Saxo Bank Report]

Last year kryptowaluty acquired a status that few analysts could predict. More and more people bought, sold and invested in the most popular cryptocurrencies, and even more intensively searched for information whether such an investment decision would be profitable for them. If you are wondering what is the current situation in the cryptocurrency market, an analysis of the search history is a good starting point.

Saxo analyzed this data to find out what questions nationals of each country are asking about the cryptocurrency market in 2022 and which currencies are of the greatest interest. This study was carried out before the collapse in the cryptocurrency market, which marked the spring of 2022.and the continued turbulence in the market will most likely affect the future behavior of global investors.

In which countries is the interest in cryptocurrencies greatest?

First of all, it is worth checking the inhabitants of which countries most often - in relation to the population size - entered cryptocurrency-related queries into their search engines. The leaders are here United States i Great Britain: Of these two countries, 8,21% and 8,1% of all cryptocurrency queries were asked, respectively. Considering that these countries are home to some of the largest in the world cryptocurrency exchanges and the most important institutional investors, this should not come as a surprise to anyone.

Which currencies are the most popular?

Which currencies are the most popular? Based on the global search results data, you can see considerable variation between countries and regions. For example, Australians are by far the top of the list when it comes to queries cardano i XRP - cryptocurrencies, which in 2021 were among the strongest gaining in value, although in 2022 both have so far recorded significant and permanent declines.

In turn, information on Ethereum - the pillar of the cryptocurrency market - most often searched for in Canada, the United States and Nigeria. The best countries for cryptocurrencies in this regard also include a number of smaller countries from which numerous inquiries have been made, such as Kosovo, Singapore and the Netherlands.

Cryptocurrency keywords in 2022

If you look at it from a broader perspective, you can get interesting information about the most popular terms globally. The ones related to dogecoin - as much as 18,65% of all searches related to the popular meme cryptocurrency.

Some of them are probably related to the impressive but short-lived spike in Dogecoin's price in May 2021 after Elon Musk posted a tweet about it, making many people aware that such a meme currency exists. At the same time, the second group of the most popular queries (15,74% of searches) concerned NFT. Subsequently, searches were made for the latest cryptocurrencies, including shiba, XRP and solana.

Where to buy the most popular cryptocurrencies?

Searching for cryptocurrencies out of curiosity is one thing, but it is quite another thing to search for them with the intention of buying them. Therefore, we analyzed the data to find out which currencies were searched for by country investment information prior to the current market crash.

We found significant regional differences again. In Singapore, Canada and the United States, the most frequently searched search term was "where to buy cardano", reflecting the growing popularity of the cryptocurrency. Whereas "Where to buy ethereum" In the US, UK, Philippines and India, the US and UK were also at the top of the list for brine, TRX and EXRP inquiries.

World Cryptocurrency Price Forecasts

In the world of cryptocurrencies, it all depends on the price. It makes sense for cryptocurrency holders to look for price forecasts developed by experts to get an idea of ​​what the fate of a given investment may be. Therefore, we analyzed inquiries for various price forecasts by country with relatively surprising results.

In Kosovo, the price forecasts enjoyed the greatest interest the meme cryptocurrency shiba inuwhile the people of Cyprus were at the forefront of inquiries about the future price salted. Interestingly, the Irish searched more often for cardano price predictions, while the Brits were more interested in the future price of tether.

Cryptocurrency security

Cryptocurrencies are an emerging asset class that is inherently volatile and difficult to monitor. It is understandable, therefore, that questions about the security and protection of cryptocurrencies constitute an important topic of searches.

We saw a huge number of inquiries about whether bitcoin could be "hacked" from the United States and the United Kingdom, while people in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa were the most frequently asked questions about whether bitcoin was legal.

Some were more interested in answering questions about recent events - people from Great Britain, Nigeria and India were the leaders in questions about the causes of the crash Bitcoin, most likely as a result of a significant drop in the price of this cryptocurrency in November 2021. Of course, the recent decline in the bitcoin rate could trigger a new wave of similar inquiries from around the world.

Which countries are most interested in NFT?

2021 was marked by the NFT. All over the world, the number of inquiries for non-exchangeable tokens has increased sharply after information about the most expensive transactions appeared in the media. The 'bursting' of the NFT-related speculative bubble in early 2022 also likely prompted increased interest in this new and little-known asset.

While some quickly recognized the NFT as a fleeting trend, some countries showed a particularly strong interest in these assets. Singapore, the United States, Australia and New Zealand were most interested in learning more about them, asking questions such as "what does NFT mean" and "how does NFT work".

Moreover, these countries were most interested in going a step further by asking how NFTs can be purchased. It is somewhat surprising that UK cryptocurrency enthusiasts showed less interest in NFT.

The NFT carbon footprint

Nowadays, a new generation of ethical investments is driven by environmental, social responsibility and corporate governance (ESG) issues. With the development of ESG and just after the COP26 summit, we saw considerable interest in the environmental impact of NFT.

In the United States, Great Britain and the Philippines, terms such as "environmental impact of NFT" and "harmful to the environment" were searched more frequently than in other countries. This likely reflects the growing awareness of the large carbon footprint of many cryptocurrencies and the desire to avoid contributing to it through the NFT.

As careful market observers already know, cryptocurrency mining is incredibly harmful to the environment - carbon dioxide emissions bitcoin mining alone is greater than the carbon footprint of all of New Zealand.

What about cryptocurrency funds?

Based on the data obtained from our clients, it can be seen that the interest in the cryptocurrency market goes beyond buying and selling cryptocurrencies. We looked at some of the most popular products for cryptocurrency monitoring offered at Saxo Bank, including ETN, ETF and ETC, allowing you to speculate on cryptocurrency prices without having to buy any currencies. Of these, the ETN is the most popular.

They are similar to ETFs except that they are unsecured debt securities issued by a bank and do not involve the taking of assets as such. The most popular cryptocurrency ETNs were Ethereum Tracker EUR XBT Provider, Bitcoin Tracker EUR XBT Provider and VanEck Bitcoin ETN.

The most popular cryptocurrency pairs

Saxo Bank offers market trading crypto-forex in pairs combining three cryptocurrencies (bitcoin, litecoin and ethereum) with three fiat currencies (USD, EUR, JPY). Several currency pairs have proven to be particularly popular with our floating currency clients.

The most important of these is the couple bitcoin / USDwhich accounted for 40,82% the volume of cryptocurrency transactions on Saxo platforms.

Ethereum / USD and litecoin / USD were next, which accounted for 35% and 10% of the trading volume respectively. On the other hand, cryptocurrency pairs using other, less important fiat currencies constituted a minority of the total transactions.

Author Analytical team Saxo Bank