Google Trends: a big rise in interest in bitcoin specially in Africa

[wxa7115]

I’m surprised that Venezuela is only number 5, you could put it at 4 since it seems it is tied with Malaysia, with the crazy devaluation and the political instability of the country I would have thought Venezuela would have been number 1 or at least number 2.

[HarringtonStark]

Bitcoin it spreads like an epidemic over the world.

Yes so let us share it to our friends, families and enemies.

People suddenly got interested in bitcoin because of the rise in price I think. I joined a Facebook group called "Bitcoin" and I see manny of the posts came from people from Africa and Middle East countries.

[doomistake]

Google trends for the past year: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%2012-m&q=Bitcoin
and past 3 months: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%203-m&q=Bitcoin
both show a big rise in interest in bitcoin and surprisingly the top leading regions are from Africa (Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa)

Not just on bitcoin, Nigeria is also one of the biggest handler on The Billion Coin, I am just wondering why these people keep on buying TBC even they know that this coin is just a scam and never can have a exchanger, and now, they are buying bitcoins even you will sell it to them doubling its price, they don't mind, as long as they can have bitcoin. You may said that I'm saying nonsense here, but one of my friend just sold 1 bitcoin to a Nigerian and just bought for $2000.

We al know that bitcoin is helping so many people around the world, and bitcoin don't have an exception on who can use it, as long as you are dedicated and have knowledge on how to do it, then it is okay. Maybe that is why Africa is showing that big interest on bitcoin because they want to change their country, which is most of the areas there are facing poverty.

[wh04m1]

Google trends for the past year: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%2012-m&q=Bitcoin
and past 3 months: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%203-m&q=Bitcoin
both show a big rise in interest in bitcoin and surprisingly the top leading regions are from Africa (Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa)

...

It is very normal that bitcoin is popular in African countries. In fact, interest in the bitcoin in countries where the dollar is valued will increase over time. Because the bitcoin earned in the internet environment can be converted into dollars. The people there are more comfortable with the dollar.

I am not surprised to find interest in countries like Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa.

[poloniexwhale]

Google trends for the past year: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%2012-m&q=Bitcoin
and past 3 months: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%203-m&q=Bitcoin
both show a big rise in interest in bitcoin and surprisingly the top leading regions are from Africa (Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa)

Earning money from bitcoin is doable in Africa, therefore so many africans do that. Don't forget they play MMM ponzi scam in Nigeria, so they like bitcoin. 

[dominikherzog5]

it is a good news!Bitcoin it spreads like an epidemic over the world.
more people interest it ,higher price will be!

[Junko]

My first thought was Nigerian "Princes" wanting to move their ill-gotten gains into bitcoin, but that would make up only a small percentage if at all. Maybe many see bitcoin as a way of getting on an even playing field with the rest of the world.

[nara1892]

yeah even some arab countries are showing some interest in bitcoin especially the gulf countries , and this may be a great sign cause there are many millionaires there who may take this opportunity
in general these trends are due the last price , cause nothing changed in bitcoin except the price and now more online networks are covering it 

yeah, sadly this part is true. the increased interest is because of the price rise and not the fact that people suddenly found bitcoin as a good currency. i wish there was a way to find out what exactly they are searching about, the suggestions google is listing at the bottom seems to be similar searches not what those searchers were interested but it is interesting that everyone has been searching about price and investment about bitcoin.

I worried about it too, that their interest just because of the rising price of bitcoin. This few weeks I also see many ads about bitcoin. I think those ads lead those people to be interested in bitcoin. well, it does not really matter because when they know what bitcoin really is, their interest will probably increase.

[Pursuer]

It's great news, but if you check carefully at site OP mentioned, we can see some people still manipulated/waste their time on/by faucet.
Furthermore, the most popular related topics and popular search about bitcoin in few countries are "ponzi scheme", "ponzi/fake cloud mining investment" and "scamming"

Big interest is great, but even better if people in their country can prevent them from fake/ponzi investment and wasting time on faucet.

most of the time in the third world countries where salaries are low and people are less educated and experienced, they look for ways of making more money in this case more bitcoin so they search investment, and in bitcoin the only thing that comes up is 90% Ponzi schemes as investment search result.
and them not knowing these they try them out.
and worse thing about this type of scheme is their affiliate system, the Ponzi scheme uses the victims to get more victims which means after a while it is users that are advertising the program not the program itself.

[asdalani]

It's great news, but if you check carefully at site OP mentioned, we can see some people still manipulated/waste their time on/by faucet.
Furthermore, the most popular related topics and popular search about bitcoin in few countries are "ponzi scheme", "ponzi/fake cloud mining investment" and "scamming"

Big interest is great, but even better if people in their country can prevent them from fake/ponzi investment and wasting time on faucet.

I know many people within this forum that have used faucets and receieved a payout. It may not be much but it's something to work with. Do you remember that faucets a longtime ago was generally spitting around 1 Bitcoin per day?

[Idrisu]

When i do heard about Nigerians the hting comes to my mind is about "TBC" not btc because most buyers on those mlm scheme and now they are going to the legit thing which is bitcoin, its a good news that those people who already got interested to bitcoin since they do know that BTC does have a value rather than on those TBC scam coin.

African, outside media awash are hard working people and intelligent, that is why there always see good in investment, business and services. Bitcoin is raising in Africa because bitcoin transactions are decentralized. PayPal do not accept Nigerian and some African countries but bitcoin come as an alternative.

[arcanaaerobics]

It's weird that most of these places they talk about do not have internet yet they can trade bitcoin.
You try to get a cell phone service in the serengetti of the African jungle before? And you expect a clear wifi signal when your transmitting btc to another wallet? 

[asdalani]

It's weird that most of these places they talk about do not have internet yet they can trade bitcoin.
You try to get a cell phone service in the serengetti of the African jungle before? And you expect a clear wifi signal when your transmitting btc to another wallet?  

You'd be a little surprised at the things going on in Africa. The oppression is real within those places and the people in the Military is the ones that get better privileges...Africa is rich, yet the oppressors hide money from the poor.

I would think that a cellphone connection is the very least of their worries.

[Zadicar]

When i do heard about Nigerians the hting comes to my mind is about "TBC" not btc because most buyers on those mlm scheme and now they are going to the legit thing which is bitcoin, its a good news that those people who already got interested to bitcoin since they do know that BTC does have a value rather than on those TBC scam coin.

Most people inside Africa and Malaysia already know that Bitcoin has a monetary value sort of tied to it. The reason why the big people such as the owner of The Billion Coin [TBC] ask for people money virtually is because they secretly want to stock up on Bitcoin BTC.

If you look real closely at the HYYIP programs that are on social medias and search engines, you would notice that most of them accept BTC. Weird isn't it? Not really.

Bitcoin been around the internet for many years and it's I am sure that the owners of the HYYIP websites have built website after website just so they could stock up BTC from the people that give away their money.

Yes i do got the thing you want to explain and i agree bitcoin do known already on nigeria thats why the creator of that scammy TBC coin creates a scheme on which it do collects Bitcoin from its buyer or members which is really sad for those who are innocent about this matter because they dont even know on what thing they are involved.

[Kprawn]

It's weird that most of these places they talk about do not have internet yet they can trade bitcoin.
You try to get a cell phone service in the serengetti of the African jungle before? And you expect a clear wifi signal when your transmitting btc to another wallet?  

You'd be a little surprised at the things going on in Africa. The oppression is real within those places and the people in the Military is the ones that get better privileges...Africa is rich, yet the oppressors hide money from the poor.

I would think that a cellphone connection is the very least of their worries.

I work on contract in Africa for a couple of months in a year, and I can tell you ....cellphone coverage is very good in urban areas. You get the

strangest coverage in rural areas some time. They use a payment method called M-Pesa that are linked to cellphones, and some of them have

up to 3 old cellphones.  Africa is one of the most unique countries I have worked in my whole life. 

[wxa7115]

I believe, there are 2 reasons for that: 1) there are some problems in Africa that can be solved with Bitcoin, such as remittances 2) MMM, obviously  

And it also allows many Africans to make money, you know. If they are able to buy Bitcoins on exchanges, they can later sell them to other people at a higher exchange rate for ZAR.

Makes sense they google about that and create websites on where to buy Bitcoins, such as this one.

So, everyone tries to do business in this world

I think another reasons may be that since some of the African countries you cannot open a Paypal and that could severely limit you to receive payments but with bitcoin you don't need a credit card or to verify who you are so that could help adoption to grow in those countries.

[calkob]

Africa is seriously ready for bitcoin, and when it takes off bitcoin will be on a rocket to the moon, to be honest i am surprised that most Africans arnt all over this already, like it has serious benefits for their economies.

[alyssa85]

I wonder what prompted this sudden interest from Nigeria especially?
Is Nigeria's currency somewhat unstable at the moment or are the scammers there just discovering Bitcoin all of a sudden?

Nigeria is an oil economy and they have been struggling a bit since the oil price collapsed from the $100 level in 2014. Though of course they are in better shape than Russia or Venezuela.

[Sithara007]

I wonder what prompted this sudden interest from Nigeria especially?
Is Nigeria's currency somewhat unstable at the moment or are the scammers there just discovering Bitcoin all of a sudden?

Nigeria is an oil economy and they have been struggling a bit since the oil price collapsed from the $100 level in 2014. Though of course they are in better shape than Russia or Venezuela.

The Nigerian economy is in deep recession, and Russia is faring much better. In 2016, the Nigerian economy shrunk by 1.54% (worse than the predictions), while the Russian economy shrunk by just 0.2% (much better than the expectations).

[RoommateAgreement]

I wonder what prompted this sudden interest from Nigeria especially?
Is Nigeria's currency somewhat unstable at the moment or are the scammers there just discovering Bitcoin all of a sudden?

Nigeria is an oil economy and they have been struggling a bit since the oil price collapsed from the $100 level in 2014. Though of course they are in better shape than Russia or Venezuela.

The Nigerian economy is in deep recession, and Russia is faring much better. In 2016, the Nigerian economy shrunk by 1.54% (worse than the predictions), while the Russian economy shrunk by just 0.2% (much better than the expectations).

but nothing you said in these comments are the reason from inreased interest towards bitcoin in African countries. the economy and all these other things can always affect the fact that people seek other investments to make more money but they are more interested in bitcoin because of all the rises that bitcoin had in the past years.
people around the world are all interested in bitcoin. you can't see it on google trends sometimes because they search for it in their own language.