The global citizenry, this year, seemingly remained very dazzled by all things AI (Artificial Intelligence) — the Search trends on Google has indicated. Throughout the course of the year of 2023, Google searches around crypto, Bitcoin, and related-Web3 keywords did not rank high, losing spots particularly to AI-related keywords like ChatGPT. This dip in people’s interest around Web3 in 2023 could be attributed to last year’s back-to-back market crashing events like the downfall of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, Terra, and Luna among others.
Between 2020 and 2022, crypto-related searches were flooding Google from all over the world. Around August 2022, these crypto searches gradually tumbled and were replaced by searches around AI, a CoinTelegraph report said, citing data from Google Trends.
To put the situation in perspective, AI-related Google searches bagged a score of 91 on Google Trends, whereas searches around Bitcoin only scored 22 out of 100.
For Bitcoin, the most traction was generated this year from El Salvador – the first nation in the world that recognised BTC as a legal tender alongside its fiat currency. Other nations that contributed to crypto-related searches on Google this year includes Nigeria, Netherlands, Brazil, and Switzerland.
The graphical representation of crypto’s downfall on Google Searches this year have been floating on X. Many members of the crypto community are not showing any hysteria around this turn of events however. They believe, AI is a newer point of interest for the masses whereas a lot about crypto is already known and understood by those interested, which could explain the drop in search counts. In fact, some crypto supporters even posted that AI should indeed be on the top, interest-wise.
Bitcoin in 2021 being as relevant as *AI is now* is the wildest stat to me. I love Bitcoin, but AI should be on a completely different level.
— Eric Wall | BIP-2023-50428 (@ercwl) December 26, 2023
Crypto’s descent on Google Search does not come as quite the shock. Back in June this year, Google searches for cryptocurrency related keywords had sunk to a 29-month low. Multiple hack attacks on crypto protocols and global regulatory uncertainty around crypto were touted among reasons for this dip at the time.
As for AI, most interest was generated from Vietnam, China, the Philippines and Myanmar. Google Bard, Meta AI, and GrokAI, and fears about AI taking up people’s jobs emerged among top AI-related searches.
