Bitcoin is halfway through its second decade, and the 20th anniversary is not far away. During this period, the crypto world has also undergone unpredictable changes, influenced by market sentiment, political strategies, and the alternation of bull and bear market cycles.
Despite these fluctuations, new users continue to enter the crypto world through various channels. Which of these are the most popular? Let’s explore the answers in this article.
1. Commonly used keywords
To better understand changes in user interests, I analyzed Google Trends over the past five years. This period covers bull and bear market cycles, providing an objective perspective.
People often search for general concepts such as "Crypto (cryptocurrency)", "Blockchain (blockchain)" and "Token (token)". Unsurprisingly, search volume for these keywords is proportional to the market’s upward movement.
Source: Golden Finance
But these searches reveal no intent. To better understand user interests, it's helpful to take a closer look at intent-based search.
Source: Golden Finance
Throughout history, the primary uses of cryptocurrencies have been for trading, investing, and speculation. Airdrops followed closely behind, but they were not as popular as the recently frequently searched keywords such as “trade” and “invest”. Still, passive income is a topic of interest to cryptocurrency-savvy users.
2. Transaction related inquiries
While we’re on the subject of transactions, let’s take it a step further and dig into user brand awareness and key paths to entry.
Users' attention to topics related to CEX (centralized exchange) and DEX (decentralized exchange) reflects the dominance of CEX trading volume over DEX trading volume. Despite the various opinions, DeFi is still a small part of the broader crypto market, a part of which centralized exchanges like Binance cannot be underestimated.
Source: Golden Finance
Key observations:
CEX’s popularity peaked in late December 2019 and hit a low in mid-March 2021.
Binance has been leading the way in terms of search interest among the top centralized exchanges in 2024.
Source: Golden Finance
Attention to DEXs hit a low in the summer of 2021, but reached an all-time high in late November 2024. This may be driven by a new bull run in Bitcoin and a surge in meme coin activity on the Solana DEXs.
Among TVL’s leading DEXs, PancakeSwap dominated search interest in May 2021. In December 2024, Uniswap leads the way, followed by Raydium.
Source: Golden Finance
The popularity of crypto derivatives has peaked in 2021, but protocols like Hyperliquid have recently seen renewed interest compared to Drift Protocol and Jupiter.
Prediction markets soared in November 2024, driven by Trump-related discussions on Polymarket. However, the heat quickly dropped, reflecting a similar trend to November 2020.
Source: Golden Finance
3. Token search dynamics
The term "crypto" is only as popular as "Bitcoin", which is the main query term for crypto-related topics.
Bitcoin search interest peaked during the 2021 bull run and hit its nadir in late 2019. Even after Bitcoin reached a price of $100,000 for the first time in late 2024, it failed to regain its former popularity.
Source: Golden Finance
Meanwhile, query frequency for other top market-cap tokens including Ethereum has remained relatively stable, although XRP has seen a significant increase following its recent rally.
Source: Golden Finance
4. Narrative popularity
When comparing user interest in major vertical industries such as DeFi, RWA, DePIN, GameFi and the recently popular AI x Crypto, user interest in the first two industries is sustainable. In contrast, other industries rely more on hype.
There has been a recent surge in interest in RWA and the AI x Crypto industry, with DePIN, DeFi and GameFi still taking a backseat.
Source: Golden Finance
The popularity of meme coins surged to unprecedented levels in late 2024. At the same time, artificial intelligence-related tokens are gathering attention, with March 2024 being a critical moment.
Source: Golden Finance
5. Keywords for 2024
Now that we have a general idea of the current interest and main focus projects in Web3, let me share some of the most popular search queries in the crypto industry right now (sorted by search query volume).
Bitcoin – the unbeatable attention magnet
Ethereum
DEX
OC
L1 and L2 - evenly matched
DeFi
Altcoin
RWA
AI Agent
meme coin
DePIN
NFT
GameFi
original universe
Here is a ranking of the largest Web3 brands:
Bitcoin
XRP
TON
Binance
Ethereum
Solana
USDT
TRON
Bybit
Metamask
OKX
Searches for all other brands, including those frequently discussed on Crypto Twitter such as Vitruals, Ethena, or any of the L2 chains, lag far behind the above mentioned brands.
What can be seen?
Most topics discussed on Crypto Twitter do not reach a global audience. Retail investors still join the crypto world through centralized exchanges, and DeFi captures only a small portion of crypto interest. Many of today’s popular brands are still beyond the radar of retail investors.
[Disclaimer] There are risks in the market, so investment needs to be cautious. This article does not constitute investment advice, and users should consider whether any opinions, views or conclusions contained in this article are appropriate for their particular circumstances. Invest accordingly and do so at your own risk.
This article is reprinted with permission from: (Foresight News)
Original author: Stacy Muur, Web3 researcher
『Google 2024 hot currency keyword ranking list! Apart from Bitcoin, what else are people searching for?" This article was first published in "Crypto City"
