United States-based spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) saw collective inflows of $488.1 million on June 5, but Google data shows hardly anyone is searching for them compared to 2021’s bull run — a bullish sign that retail investors haven’t arrived yet.
The ETFs recorded their second-best inflow day of $886.6 million on June 4. The next day achieved around half that number, with the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund accounting for the largest share of inflows at $220.6 million, Farside Investors data shows.
BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust was second with $155.4 million, and even the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust — which has seen net outflows exceed $17.8 billion since January — saw $14.6 million in net inflows.
Despite the strong inflows and a Bitcoin (BTC) rally past $71,000, Google Trends data shows that, compared to 2021, hardly any Americans are conducting searches related to Bitcoin, Bitcoin ETFs, its price or crypto in general.
Google Trends data, which gives a value out of a total of 100 based on a search interest’s relative peak popularity, gave a score of 31 for searches for “Bitcoin” originating from the U.S. on June 5, while “Bitcoin ETF” had a score of 1.
Other searches, like “Bitcoin price” and “crypto,” have received higher index scores of 18 and 13, respectively, but they are still far below the scores during 2021’s retail-driven bull run.
Crypto-related search interest has waned over the year, with interest spiking across the board on Jan. 11 — the day the U.S. approved 10 spot Bitcoin ETFs — and on March 5 when Bitcoin broke above $69,000 for the first time since 2021.
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Search interest for “Bitcoin” hit its peak in May 2021. A few weeks earlier, it had surpassed $50,000 for the first time and would later go on to hit its long-standing all-time high of nearly $69,000 in November 2021.
Crypto analyst Miles Deutscher, in a June 6 X post, also shared data showing viewership of crypto-related YouTube channels was down significantly from 2021, despite Bitcoin having already surpassed the peak price then.
When Bitcoin hit its peak in 2021, crypto YouTube viewership was around four million daily views, but it dropped to around 800,000 views a day in 2024 despite BTC reaching new highs.
“Retail isn’t back yet,” Deutscher claimed. ”There is no indicator in the world that sums up the current state of the market better than crypto [YouTube] views.”
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