• The main concerns for those firmly criticizing Ethereum were about its energy costs and speed in comparison with the other Layer 1 alternatives
• Dogecoin DOGE’s popularity is most probably a result of its healthy relationship with Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk.

Sentiment analysis done on tweets over a period of one year shows that Dogecoin is the most loved while Ethereum is the least loved. Among five cryptocurrencies that were part of the study, the meme token emerged as tweeps’ favorite.

As per the ranking from the study outcome, Ethereum took the position of most hated. This is according to a study by TRG Datacenters who analyzed tweets from January 2021 to January 2022. 

The love and hate scale on Dogecoin and Ethereum

TRG Datacenters analyzed five of the most popular cryptocurrencies to figure out which digital assets were the most emotionally stirring on Twitter. The five cryptocurrencies were, Bitcoin (BTC), Cardano (ADA), Dogecoin (DOGE), Ethereum (ETH), and Litecoin (LTC). 

Of the five, Ethereum emerged as the most hated since 29 percent of all the tweets contained a negative sentiment towards it. Unfortunately, the decision not to include Ripple, which has ardent fans but also very passionate critics, probably makes the study less comprehensive than it should have been.

The main concerns for those firmly criticizing Ethereum were its energy costs and speed in comparison with the other Layer 1 alternatives. According to Crypto Twitter, the highest level of Ethereum negativity was noted when a  bug caused Ethereum to briefly split into two chains in late August 2021. 

The study had Bitcoin as the second most hated on Twitter with a 27 percent total negativity score. Cardano emerged third with a 16 percent negativity score while Litecoin came in fourth with 8 percent of all the studied tweets indicating a negative attitude.

In order to analyze the sentiments in tweets, TRG Datacenters looked out for specific words used alongside the cryptocurrency’s name. The names of interest were, “Hate,” “is a scam,” “disappointed with” or “disappointed,” “dip in,” “bad,” “lost money with” or “loss on.” 

When used next to or together with the coin’s name, these words served as indicators of hate levels towards the coin. Having the least number of such words associated with it, Dogecoin came out as the crowd favorite, with just 6 percent of all tweets containing some form of unfavorable sentiment.

Dogecoin’s popularity is most probably a result of its healthy relationship with Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk. Musk’s public decision to accept DOGE as payment for Tesla merchandise drove sentiments to their all-time highs. 

Hinkle weighs in with the analyst’s view

Chris Hinkle, the Chief Technology Officer at TRG Datacenters pointed out a relationship between tweets and the price of crypto assets. 

Meme stocks in particular appeared to be driven by retail investors. In the case of larger currencies such as Bitcoin, tweets have actually lagged price movements, implying some degree of institutional lean.

Hinkle further explained that the recent acquisition of Twitter by Musk might lead to a more retail-driven crypto market. 

Hinkle feels that Musk’s newfound influence may “perhaps pave the path for less algorithmic manipulation and the beginning of a new era of retail investors.”