Bitcoin as a search term, ranked by countries. Nigeria, South Africa, Austria

[ololajulo]

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.

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

Hasn't Nigerian banks adopted a ban on virtual currencies? Still it being so popular is weird. It's not still recognized by banks.

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.

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[CLS63]

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.

[stompix]

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.

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)    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!

[squatter]

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

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 that their Nigerian user base is rife with fraud.

[skyline247]

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.

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.

[rodel caling]

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.
[/quote]



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.

[Kyraishi]

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.

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

Hasn't Nigerian banks adopted a ban on virtual currencies? Still it being so popular is weird. It's not still recognized by banks.

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.

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.

[Eugenar]

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.

[Kakmakr]

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. 

[sarabanda]

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

[Sithara007]

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.

[yoseph]

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.

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

Hasn't Nigerian banks adopted a ban on virtual currencies? Still it being so popular is weird. It's not still recognized by banks.

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.

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.

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 .

[Kyraishi]

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.

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

Hasn't Nigerian banks adopted a ban on virtual currencies? Still it being so popular is weird. It's not still recognized by banks.

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.

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.

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.

[fullhdpixel]

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.

[acroman08]

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.

[Mike Mayor]

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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.

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.

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.

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

Hasn't Nigerian banks adopted a ban on virtual currencies? Still it being so popular is weird. It's not still recognized by banks.

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.

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. 

[Willitivity]

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.

[Kyraishi]

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.

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.

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.

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.

[DdmrDdmr]

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:

Interest by region
See in which location your term was most popular during the specified time frame. Values are calculated on a scale from 0 to 100, where 100 is the location with the most popularity as a fraction of total searches in that location, a value of 50 indicates a location which is half as popular. A value of 0 indicates a location where there was not enough data for this term.

Note: A higher value means a higher proportion of all queries, not a higher absolute query count. So a tiny country where 80% of the queries are for "bananas" will get twice the score of a giant country where only 40% of the queries are for "bananas".

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.

[AppliedOptimal]

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:

Interest by region
See in which location your term was most popular during the specified time frame. Values are calculated on a scale from 0 to 100, where 100 is the location with the most popularity as a fraction of total searches in that location, a value of 50 indicates a location which is half as popular. A value of 0 indicates a location where there was not enough data for this term.

Note: A higher value means a higher proportion of all queries, not a higher absolute query count. So a tiny country where 80% of the queries are for "bananas" will get twice the score of a giant country where only 40% of the queries are for "bananas".

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.