It's been over 15 years since Satoshi Nakamoto introduced Bitcoin to the world, and a lot has happened in that time. Dubbed a pyramid scheme, a rat poison (SQ), and declared dead hundreds of times, more than a dozen exchange-traded funds have grown to trillions of dollars in assets tracking the performance of the world's largest financial markets.
More recently, it has been associated with the Internet penetration curve since 1997, which shows some deviations in its upward trajectory, but the overall trend is very encouraging. Google Trends data also shows that retail traders are gradually returning to the scene, although some countries are more likely to seek out major cryptocurrencies than others. The top 5 are:
El Salvador reigns supreme
Perhaps to no one's surprise, the first country on Google's query list is El Salvador. After all, the small Central American country made headlines in 2021 by becoming the first country to officially recognize Bitcoin as legal tender.
Since then, pro-Bitcoin political leader Nayib Bukele and his government have outlined a number of Bitcoin-related initiatives, including using the cryptocurrency to pay for veterinary clinics, volcanic bonds, and mining surplus volcanic energy. I've done it.
Last but not least, El Salvador has been quietly accumulating BTC over the past few years. The country experienced a devastating bear market in 2022 and survived multiple attacks by international organizations such as the IMF, which criticized its pro-Bitcoin approach.
Data from this tracker shows that the Bukele-led country currently holds $400 million worth of BTC.
Nigeria follows suit
The African country has been battling rampant inflation for years, while blaming the crypto industry (and Binance) for devaluing its fiat currency. Additionally, the government had placed some bans on banks to stop providing services to crypto customers, which was finally lifted late last year.
Despite such controversies, many surveys show that Nigerians consistently prefer Bitcoin and other digital assets. Google Trends data supports this theory, as Nigeria ranks second in interest in Bitcoin.
Who else is in the top 5?
The presence of El Salvador and Nigeria was somewhat expected, but given the fact that BTC is legal in one of them and the other suffers from inflation, the other three in the top five The country is quite amazing. This is mainly because they are from Europe and come from economically powerful countries such as Liechtenstein, Switzerland, and Austria.
Less has been said or written about the level of adoption in Liechtenstein and Austria, but Switzerland ranks among the most crypto-promoting countries, or at least in comparison to some regions.
There are multiple cryptocurrency trading products on the Swiss market, local banks offer staking of various assets, and in the canton of Zug certain payments can be made in Bitcoin and Ethereum.
