Bitcoin price is barely keeping above $20,000 – a price the cryptocurrency traded at several years ago. The recent selloff has caused the search term “bitcoin” to skyrocket on Google Trends to the highest point of 2022 and over the 12-months.

Does the surge in search term data suggest that investors are searching for answers? Or could this crash also have made prices so attractive that latecomers to the trend are scrambling to learn more?

Google Trends shows the highest interest over the past year | Source: Google Trends

Google Trend Search Volume For “Bitcoin” Spike To 2022 Highs

Speculators would currently claim that Bitcoin is performing poorly purely from a price perspective. By most other standards, the cryptocurrency is just fine, despite being pronounced dead by mainstream media for more than the 400th time.

In fact, going by Google Trends data only, its more popular than it has been over the last year and throughout all of 2022. Since the inception of BTC, the current spike registers as the third-highest in the history of the coin (pictured below).

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The 2021 highs around $65,000 in April ranks in second place, and the 2017 rally the took Bitcoin price to $20,000 the first time was the highest ever recorded. During that time, few knew what a cryptocurrency was while today the top cryptocurrency is a household name. Rising search interest at that time made perfect sense.

Google Trends shows the highest interest over the past year | Source: Google Trends

Crypto Market Plunge Pumps Up The Volume

However, this isn’t 2017. People now know what Bitcoin is, or have at least heard of it before. They know it traded at these prices in the past, and seeing it here again is causing a great deal of fear in current investors.

But what if, in contrast to people searching in panic, the search volume is from opportunists who see this price level as a chance to get in at an area that was once viewed as “early?” Those who are worried are turning to search for “bitcoin is dead” instead.

Did lower prices make Bitcoin more interesting? | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView.com

In addition to search volume surging for the term “bitcoin,” trading volume has also seen the largest increase since mid-2021. Trading volume tends to be the highest as investors capitulate and bottoms are in turn put in. The rise in volume indicates an unusually high amount of coins being exchanged.

Related Reading | Why Bitcoin Production Cost Is A Very Likely Bottom

Increasing volume can also present when a trend is strengthening, so anything is still possible with the most profitable speculative asset in history. There also must be a buyer for every coin sold, so someone out there is buying at these prices.

Trading volume is easier to analyze and derive predictive information from. What exactly is the increase in Google Trend search volume telling us?