Bitcoin Forum

https://i.ibb.co/PWP3m5r/interest-in-bitcoin-google-trends.jpg
Here is the explanation from Google, I just changed the terms to bitcoin, as I searched for bitcoin:

This statistic is for the past 12 months, and I am not really amazed that most bitcoin searches came from Nigeria. However, I would think Venezuela would be on the top 5 as well. I don't understand why Austria was above Switzerland, but oh well. I imagine South Korea is in 58 because they are searching for altcoins or something.

So what do you think about this ranking? Here is the complete order:
Rank
Country, Percentage
1
Nigeria, 100
2
South Africa, 69
3
Austria, 59
4
Ghana, 59
5
Switzerland, 54
6
Netherlands, 54
7
St. Helena, 52
8
Germany, 44
9
Singapore, 42
10
Australia, 41
11
Ireland, 39
12
Brazil, 38
13
Slovenia, 38
14
Canada, 36
15
Malaysia, 36
16
Venezuela, 35
17
United Arab Emirates, 35
18
United States, 32
19
United Kingdom, 31
20
New Zealand, 31
21
Turkey, 30
22
Pakistan, 29
23
Portugal, 28
24
Philippines, 28
25
Belgium, 27
26
Norway, 25
27
Sweden, 25
28
Hong Kong, 25
29
Colombia, 24
30
Kenya, 24
31
Spain, 23
32
Czechia, 23
33
Lithuania, 23
34
Croatia, 23
35
Italy, 21
36
Finland, 21
37
Bulgaria, 19
38
Romania, 19
39
Israel, 18
40
Slovakia, 18
41
Denmark, 18
42
Vietnam, 17
43
Poland, 16
44
Peru, 16
45
Serbia, 15
46
Indonesia, 15
47
France, 15
48
Argentina, 14
49
Bangladesh, 14
50
Morocco, 14
51
Iran, 14
52
Hungary, 13
53
India, 13
54
Thailand, 13
55
Mexico, 12
56
Greece, 12
57
Chile, 12
58
South Korea, 9
59
Egypt, 8
60
Saudi Arabia, 8
61
Ukraine, 6
62
Russia, 5
63
Taiwan, 4
64
Japan, 2

Does make sense, why underdeveloped countries like Nigeria and South Africa would be extremely popular for Bitcoin, it provides a lot of earning opportunities that for countries like America or Canada, it wouldn't be very worth it, but in those countries where things are cheaper, earning like 20 dollars a day online would be a dream come true.

I am surpised to see countries like Singapore and Australia above countries like Venezuela though, it sort of makes sense for Singapore, but no way would I think Australia would be ranked so highly.

Some parts make sense, but I'm surprised by the fact that Japan is the last one, or that the US is so deep down the list. Other places are higher than expected, but for the most part — yeah, It does make sense.

The search only shows the interest for knowledge on the space, it does not indicate interest in cryptocurrency investment. Some new project observing this are considering the exploit of the west African state. Nigeria as now is putting lot of regulation to money laundering, spending and bank money deposit. The scammers and politicians want reduce public knowledge of there wealth especially with banks, they are likely to turn to cryptocurrency but the volatility is still scary to new investors.

Japan and Australia should have topped the list but in fact Japan is the last one despite being so supportive of cryptocurrency. Infact, India is ranked higher despite having such a negative view point (probably because of the case). Hasn't Nigerian banks adopted a ban on virtual currencies? Still it being so popular is weird. It's not still recognized by banks.

Well this is an interesting interpretation. underdeveloped Countries like Nigeria, South africa and Ghana are getting a lot of outsourcing work these days which implies they are searching for some interesting opportunities to earn BTC. Naturally in such third world countries earning even a few mBtc is enough for a week's meal so they are really into it. Also high population rates in countries like Nigeria is a reason for this interesting statistics. Surprising is to see India on number 53, it is a country with highest number of internet users and it has a hell lot of outsourced work. It must have been atleast in top 10. I think may be the restriction by the Govt. has made the searches go low.

Well, I just saw on the news that you can buy Bitcoin in the newsstands all over Australia. so Australia is big on bitcoin and it is more popular than many people think. I'm not saying it based on any statistic but that is my observation so I do not have any evidence for it.
Here is the source for the news for Australia:
https://bestroi.io/blog/bitcoin-in-australia-for-cash-can-now-be-bought-at-every-newsstand/
https://bestroi.io/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/af429010-1f03-46eb-88bc-ede39a55fae5.jpg

You are clearly underestimating South Africa here, mate. Let me correct you. South Africa is not underdeveloped. Neither is it a third world country. I guess you are with the assumption that when a country is in Africa it is a poor underdeveloped country. That is wrong. It is a bit offensive to say that in that country a few mBTC is enough for a week's meal. Although there are poor people in that country as there are in India and everywhere, your generalization seems to be hasty.

The data shows how Bitcoin is gaining traction in the African continent. That is a great sign that adoption in that region is growing.  

I've always stated that Africa is the first continent in the world where crypto-currency should be adopted because most people there are unbanked. The fact that they manifest such a high interest for BTC is an amazing thing. Smart projects and companies should focus their attention there in my opinion and then expand from there.

I don't think the Google graph is representative of what's really going on and it's something that can be manipulated easily btw. I mean, it could be the result of spam queries to fool signal scrappers, trading bots, etc... Nigeria is listed #1, maybe because all scammers are sitting in a cybercafé all day long looking for new scams in BTC lol

A rational explanation could be the citizens of these countries are going to inject their money into the crypto world, but then why i.e. Venezuela isn't showing while the interest is a lot more important

This cannot be entirely correct, searching for Bitcoin does not mean investment. I may be hearing that there exist something called digital currency in which Bitcoin is taking the lead which might spur the interest in making some research but not for the sole purpose of investment. The figure does not justify the adoption of Bitcoin in those countries.

To be honest this comes to no surprise as for the recent years and with the raise of cryptocurrency we have seen more project coming from undeveloped countries than from the progressed ones, and this comes from the fact  that they are constantly looking for ways to improve their financial state other than the people in the developed countries, but keep in mind that this shows interest and not actual people involved in the bitcoin community, none the less this is a good example to how bitcoin is changing the world

Nigeria doesn't make me too surprised but how Japan can be the last in this list. It seems like impossible to me when we think people of Japan have a big interest in cryptocurrencies. But it shows that I am wrong then.

I didn't see my country on the list. I hoped to find it on the list. I live in Egypt and most of the people I know, know nearly nothing about the whole crypto field.
Some of them never heard of it.
It's a bad sign for our future here, not following the new movements.
We will get left behind.

I'm sure the data explains the value of each country's interest in the picture. At least they need basic knowledge about crypto and look for it through online media. And I'm sure the data will continue to grow as time goes by.

I can help you guys out. I live in South Africa. Technically it is a third world country but think of it more as  mix. It is like a third world country with some first-world infrastructure. Almost everyone has a phone and thus internet access. We have fibre internet as well. Half the people here are jobless and the minimum wage is $1.35-$1.50/ hour. The largest sector is the labour sector and is also the worst paid. Salaries between $250-$400 are common. Working at a pharmacy will ean more then at a supermarket, for example, it pays 2x more. This I call semi-skilled work. Semi-skilled salaries are between $350-$600/month Skilled work pays anywhere from $600-$2500.

Most of my friends and people my age I know make between $500-$1200 there are one two that make over $2000/ month.

The living costs are.

Rent= +-$200-$800 or so on average.
Things cost bascially 2x less then people from the USA and UK pay.
You buy mcdonalds in the USA for $10 the same meal is here for $5
The cost of technology and things we import like cars and things are about 30% more then what you pay in the USA.
ADSL= $15-$30 for 10mb line and fibre is $30-$80 for 10mb-200mb line
Bread= $1.25
1 gallon milk= $3.25
1 gallon fuel is almost $4

But we love crypto here and there are many places that accept it. Online only though for now. There is ne massive market that is our version of amazon called bidorbuy.co.za and everything there you can buy with bitcoin and have it sent to your address. We also had payfast.co.za which is like bitpay but they no longer support bitcoin since the fees are not constant and the price changes too much they said they will still support crypto but only in the future so who knows what will happen there. That large market bidorbuy.co.za has most of what I need otherwise I buy elsewhere online with fiat. Delevery takes 2 days on average.

Its kinda unexpected since most developed countries are at the middle to bottom side. The very developed ones I mean like Japan and USA. Though it really is great news since this simply means more and more countries are being knowledgeable about the existence of bitcoin and starting to acknowledge it's existence. Countries that are less influenced by banks are more likely to adopt bitcoin itself, one example of which is SouthAfrica which is second on the list.

This is a confirmation that crypto is indeed widely accepted in your country. That is good to hear. A domestic amazon-like market must be a huge one in your country. And knowing that it accepts Bitcoin is a great news. There must already be a clear set of policies and regulations in there since a market such as that cannot operate without complying with those.

$600-$2500 is actually pretty much decent. Although the living cost is a bit higher also, it is still a lot higher than many of the Asian countries. If the minimum wage is $1.35-$1.50/hour, that means you are living a far better life than many of the third world countries where $4/day is payed to a lot of employees.

This search is a reflection of awareness and quest to know what bitcoin is all about. While developing nations top the chart, this means not much has been known about bitcoin in these countries compared to developed nations who more exposed to technology. In Nigeria for example, the blockchain body has been going round campuses to educate undergraduate about bitcoin, this factor may has contributed to chart topping. 

This list may or may not be accurate, but some things are taken for granted though they are far from reality. Venezuela is a specific country because of its political and economic situation, but that doesn't mean it should be at the top of this list. Problems with electricity supply, availability and price of the Internet, minimum wages that do not cover even the essentials of life+more than a million people who have emigrated from the country.

The reason why Nigeria is at the top is probably because some people in that country have recognized Bitcoin as a possible source of income, and that country has always stood out as one of enterprising nations.

For countries like Austria and Switzerland, there is an explanation in that "twice the score", since they are in a category of tiny countries. People from these countries google Bitcoin because they see so many crypto ATMs (Austria have biggest number in Europe - 250), and Switzerland is ranked sixth in the world. Bitcoin can be also purchased in Austria post offices and their partners (over 1700 places), and in Switzerland, they sell Bitcoin via ticket machine (train stations).

Most that are unbanked are uneducated, they could be within internet use but cant hanlde computer let alone use cryptocurrency.


The ban is not prominent and can be maneuver. Most transaction should not be named after cytocurrency, I mean mentioning bitcoin as reason of transaction. such account might be banned.

It is normal to see Nigeria on the top of this list. Bitcoin is legal in Nigeria. Nigeria government also has plans to adopt Blockchain technology and they are working on implementing Blockchain into governmental insurance and financial services.

Because searches mean nothing...
For example "trump" gets a better score in Canada than in the US.

But let's stick to products and brands

BMW?  Romania, Puerto Rico, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Germany .... a bit weird...
Samsung? Bangladesh, Pakistan , Indonesia, Nepal, Sri Lanks....wtf??
Durex? (I just had to put this one here)  ;D  Mauritius Serbia Romania North Macedonia Poland
Nestle? Switzerland Pakistan Malaysia Panama Chile ......finally one that makes sense....
Lenovo Indonesia Czechia Slovakia Nepal  United Arab Emirates....  yeah.it makes total sense!!!

So...are searches relevant? Nope!

There's certainly something suspicious about it. If you go on Paxful looking to sell bitcoins for bank transfer, you'll notice Nigerian bank transfer listings are extremely common. There's 30X more listings for the Naira than US dollar. Something tells me it's not merely an indication that Bitcoin adoption is exploding there. Paxful management has been adamant (https://www.ccn.com/paxful-accused-nigeria-fraud-millions-user-funds/) that their Nigerian user base is rife with fraud.

could for governments around the world deciding to adopt Bitcoin. It's a smart move, and they will benefit greatly from doing so. Their economies will thrive, their citizens will become rich, and they will be much happier on an everyday basis.

I am surpised to see countries like Singapore and Australia above countries like Venezuela though, it sort of makes sense for Singapore, but no way would I think Australia would be ranked so highly.
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Yeah not surprise for Australia to rank highly we know Austrilla treat bitcoin as new form of paper money, so meaning crypto currency can help to the country for their economic growth so nothing surprose even ammerica need bitcoin in the future.

I agree I don't think that Africa really needs to be rushing to get into cryptocurrencies, they aren't really at the level where mainstream adoption can be done, due to their lack of technology and knowledge about it.

I'm pretty sure these search results are only so high for the people in SA and nigera due to their being a new earning opportunity with BTC, and a lot of those people being interested in those opportunities.

I bet the criteria set up to that statistics is to measure what is the percentage that a country has in terms of searching what bitcoin is, it doesn't reflect the productivity and investment of people living in those country's. Well, to say, the population of Nigeria is quite not that high compared to other countries that's why they might seem to be in a high rank. But one thing for sure that we can reflect to the statistics is the enthusiasm of people to adopt Cryptocurrency such as bitcoin in order for development and financial stability.

What is so strange about this? South Africa has already shown that they are open-minded enough to accept Bitcoin and the advantages that it offers them to reduce poverty and to create more employment opportunities and it is also a excellent tourist destination.

Nigeria is a whole other can of worms, because it is drenched in a history of scams and the natural thought would be that most of these searched are linked to scam activities. I think this is wrong, because Nigeria has a huge informal business sector that can thrive with a payment option that caters for cheap micro transactions.  ;)

That is very good,you can buy bitcoin with south african rand (ZAR) without worries https://www.artisturba.com

These results doesn't look very accurate for me. Nigeria (which accounts for less than 1% of the daily transaction volume) is at the top, and Japan (which is among the top 5 as far as the volumes are considered) at the bottom. There is something wring with the methodology they used. I will not deny the fact that the popularity of Bitcoin is rising in countries such as Nigeria and Ghana. But I can't definitely agree when they say that there is hardly any interest for Bitcoin in Japan.

I guess they included only the English language searches. The Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Russians.etc are likely to do the web search in their own native language, and not in English.

That a totally inaccurate,  Africans especially Nigeria and Ghana to my knowledge has been at the forefront of Bitcoins when it was launched,  people were initially using perfect money for the trades and purchases but switched to Bitcoins when they found out the value tends to rise over time .

I am not sure about this actually, I've never seen a lot of bitcoin users in those countries. I do know it's fairly popular there, and people see it as a great way to earn extra income and profit off of.

In my opinion, the most important country to BTC and crypto adoption would either be one of the asian countries, Singapore, Japan, or Korea. They are very technical countries and very open to new things.

Venezuela might actually be more engaged with cryptocurrency than Nigeria but when it comes to population, you know that Nigeria and Venezuela are not the same and they cannot be compared, there will definitely me more search of cryptocurrency from Nigeria than Venezuela because they have more people, but in term of usage, I think I give it up to Venezuela for their government to have even gotten to the extent of creating their own Petro coin.

I am not still surprised about Nigeria's statistics though, because when it comes to investment, I know that Nigeria's likes to invest a lot and that is why you see the that the most victim of these MMM ponzi scheme then was Nigeria first. so, for people who thinks Africans are not much in crypto, they can now see this for themselves.

a lot of Nigerian prince are looking for great investment ;)

I expected south africa to be in the top 5 but it surprise me that japan is last, I atleast expected japan to be rank at 20-30 since the government allow bitcoin to be used
legally and for it to be used as a payment on big companies. I guess locals in japan are not that interested in bitcoin.

Yes we also have (please have a look) loot.co.za and takealot.co.za both use to accept bitcoin through payfast(basically bitpay) Payfast topped taking bitcoin they said it was because of the fees and the transactions not going through in the time payment window and failing. I personally had no problems I guess some people are too cheap to pay decent fees or are stupid and ruined it for people like me. Though I think payfast want something more consistent. They do fully support crypto and will bring it back in the future.

Yes most of what I buy is with bitcoin. I have even asked a store owner if he took crypto and he said I can pay him in any main crypto so I paid in some eth but I could have used doge too. The merchant sold cannabis seeds. We are liberal here and cannabis is legal to use and grow. It was voted in the court an unconstitutional law and yeah ^^

I am not sure what you mean by "clear set of policies and regulations" when I hear those words I shudder. They both just mean someone wants control of you. We are not insane here like they are in the USA and other places. Crypto is a tangible asset here. Basically it is very high risk and your own problem. The government is happy money is coming from outside the country since I do not take up a job position locally since I work online and have multiple revenue streams. There is no tax. There can never be tax since crypto is not goverment issued. Crypto is not money. It was created by the people for the people publically. When you go from crypto to fiat you pay tax since you converting into government issued funds(local currency) you then pay capital gains tax 10%-21% the nice thing is if you are paid in bitcoin you will never pay income tax but instead capital gains since it is a trade between currencies.

We have a local exchange called luno exchange https://www.luno.com/en/exchange unlike these shitty no face noone know here they are exchanges that claim to be legit... Luno is legit and your KYC is protected by local laws. The company can get into a lot of trouble if any info is leaked or stolen. The owner is also known to the public. Basically the exchange follows current laws that actually are there to protect you and not just the government like in some countries.

Yes $600-$2500 is pretty good. The going rate for a comfortable life (there is some website that figure this out) is $500 but really you need a dual income or a friend to live with or you will struggle.
Yes we live a much better life then most third world countries. That is why I say our economy is between first and third world. Our laws and legal stuff is first world for sure. A lot of the land is rural so it makes me think of third world but I live in a suburb far from the main town. The main town is a business district and you don't want to live there.

$4 a day you can't live on here. Only if you live homeless but that's not really living.
Just some interesting info. A beggar can make $500 a month. One was even offered a job but turned it down since she made more begging. "Begging was her job"
Mostly people give beggers $0.20 or to the car guards who look after your car while you shop. A car guard will make $300-$400 or so I am guessing.


Lol oh boy. You calling other people uneducated meanwhile it is you who is uneducated. If you actually bothered to take the time to read the thread instead of spamming filth you would have seen my previous post.
Firstly South Africa is not Africa. Africa is a continent. South Africa is one of 54 countries within the African continent and is probably the most evolved and ahead.

I have already explained most people here own a cellphone and have internet access. Yes that means most people living here know how to use the internet how amazing.
I am unsure what you mean by unbanked but we definitely have banks here. There is one a few roads up from me actually.

I swear it's like some of you are so ignorant you probably think I live in a mud hut in the bush somewhere and make funny clicky sounds with my tongue.  :D :D

Not so surprised at the list, basically African countries have free crypto access. For instance, in Nigeria, the government doesn't even care about cryptocurrencies. They are basically run by small and private coperations. Further,  a great number of the citizens are in poverty and therefore looking for a source of income and this therefore explains the reason for these African countries topping the list.

Japan was actually one of the first countries to adopt bitcoin in their everyday lives, in that country you see more stores accepting BTC then anywhere else, I personally have been there and it's actually possible to live on only BTC if you aren't that fussy.

I agree, one of the main reasons why Nigeria and South Africa are so highly ranked is due to their huge populations compared to countries like Australia and Venezuela.

There's been quite a lot of governments creating their own cryptocurrencies, Venezuela is just the country that just needs it the most, it's been confirmed that giants like Korea and China are already working on them.

When interpreting Google Trends we need to understand what we are seeing. All values in the charts and maps on Google Trends are relativized (i.e. number of searched of the term Bitcoin over number of total searches in a given geographical region).

Specifically, the Interest by Region map’s help displays:

Than means that, at the top, we will see the countries that have a larger proportion of searches for the term Bitcoin in relation to the total number of that same countrie’s Google searches (not worldwide).
 
The chart in the OP indicates therefore that Nigeria is a very high-sought term in Nigeria in relation to all the Google searches in Nigeria, making it the top ratio between the two figures. Say that Bitcoin is sought on Google in 0,5% of the searches on the Engine, and that that ratio (0,5%) is the highest worldwide. That places Nigeria as the top country (always in proportion to its own searches) because it’s ratio for searches on the term Bitcoin is higher than in other countries. The 0,5% ratio is then relativized to a scale of 100, and since it is the peak ratio, it is assigned the value of 100.

It does in no way not mean That Nigeria is the country making most searched for Bitcoin (absolute value). Exaggerating a bit, we could have a new country tomorrow called “Banana Republic of Mop-head” , with one inhabitant. If that person performs a single search on Google, and the sought term is Bitcoin, the ratio would be 100%, and be the top country on the chart (with a single search for the term).

So in summary, the map chart shows where Bitcoin shown more interest over the sought terms in each country, and therefore a relativized value to this concept.

Yeah, it is the ratio of people searching for bitcoin in a country. This is used a lot in statistics. If they used an absolute number instead,  then the most crowded countries would be on top. So, I do not see any problem with Google's approach and what they are reporting is correct.
Having a country with 1 person is simply an outlier and they do not have such countries in their report.
Raw numbers may be misleading and this is one of the cases, Google is correct in reporting an adjusted number.

This search result may not be that accurate, it is very unlikely to see country like japan, Korean, china to be at the bottom of the list, Nigeria maybe actively involve in crypto but compare to this countries i don't think they have reach that level, am very sure only few percent of that countries population are into crypto unlike the Japanese or Koreans who have the majority of crypto community.