Interest in the upcoming increased use of Bitcoin (BTC) in financial markets through a potential spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) appears to have impacted retail investors, data from Google Trends shows.
The five-year global Google search score for the term “Spot Bitcoin ETF” is on track to peak at 100 this week, indicating maximum interest among the general population. The value for “Bitcoin ETF” has risen to 39, the highest since ProShares’ futures-based ETF launched two years ago. At that time, the search value for “Bitcoin ETF” was also 100.
In other words, more and more people on the high street are scouring the internet for information about Bitcoin spot ETFs and how they could impact the market cap of what is already the world’s largest cryptocurrency. Market participants are confident that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, after recently missing a deadline to challenge a critical loss of rights, will approve a spot ETF early next year, opening the liquidity floodgates.
“The approval of a spot BTC ETF is an ongoing topic in the crypto space and is often viewed as a barometer for the mainstreaming of BTC,” Toronto-based crypto platform FRNT Financial said in an email on Thursday, referring to on the increase in Google search values for ETFs.
Google Trends provides a predominantly unfiltered sample of search queries to Google and scales the search queries in a range of 0 to 100. The value represents search interest relative to the highest point in the chart for the selected region and time period. The peak value of 100 marked in the past, the bull market highs in BTC and Solana (SOL).
A spot ETF tracks the price of Bitcoin rather than Bitcoin futures prices and involves the provider purchasing and owning the cryptocurrency. It is suitable for anyone who wants to invest directly in Bitcoin without having to own the cryptocurrency itself.
Spot ETF optimism hit the market three months ago after heavyweights in traditional financial markets like BlackRock made such a request. It has protected Bitcoin from unfavorable macroeconomic developments and ensured the cryptocurrency’s better performance compared to Ether (ETH).
According to crypto service provider Matrixport, Bitcoin price could rise to $42,000 to $56,000 if the BlackRock ETF is approved. Bitcoin was recently trading at around $29,400.