I just saw that searches for 'bitcoin zero' in the VS reached an absolute record on Google Trends in February, exactly when BTC dropped to around $60,000. The previous peak in October was much higher, so this feels like classic panic reactions. Interesting detail: in 2021 and 2022, the same pattern happened right before local bottom formation.

But it gets more complicated here. Worldwide, we saw the same term peak in August and it has now fallen to 38. So the fear is mainly in America, not everywhere. That matches what’s going on: U.S. tariff pressures, the Iran situation, and stocks dropping hard. Asia and Europe likely see this as less dramatic.

A technical point I’m thinking about: Google Trends provides relative interest on a (0-100 scale), not absolute numbers. With a much larger bitcoin user base now than in 2022, a score of 100 doesn’t necessarily mean more searches in absolute terms. It means it has become relatively higher compared with the baseline level. So yes, retail fear in the VS is clearly up, but you can’t just say, “this is like 2022, so it’s going up now.”

The realized losses on bitcoin have, by the way, fallen significantly to about $400 million per day (from peaks of $2 billion), which suggests that forced selling is decreasing. The win-loss ratio rose to 1.4, so realized wins now outweigh realized losses. That points to stabilization.

So the significance of a search spike like this really depends on context. In the VS, there’s clearly more panic, but that doesn’t automatically mean a clear turning point. What also stands out to me: many retail people talk about different cryptocurrencies, from bitcoin to more speculative plays like doge, so the meaning of these search queries is broader than you might think.