Average investor far more likely to search online for Bitcoin than traditional assets

Data from English speaking countries shows that Bitcoin is the most popular investment search term but a long stretch

Cryptocurrency searches were far more popular than traditional investments including bonds, gold, shares, ETFs and securities

Australians more likely than Brits and Americans to search for investments online

Sometimes it’s hard to know how and where to invest, naturally leading people to research their options online.

Digital fundraising platform BlockState (www.blockstate.com) took a look at common search terms used by consumers in English speaking countries when they consider investing.

In the UK the search volume for new and alternative investments like cryptocurrency was more than double that of traditional assets. Cryptocurrency saw a surge in popularity in 2017 following a price spike, and it is the Blockchain technology behind cryptocurrencies that enables assets to be tokenised.

While in the UK 144,800 searches were made for investments, with gold and bonds being the most searched terms, 383,600 searches were made for cryptocurrency, with the vast bulk (301,000) for Bitcoin, in the year from May 2018 to May 2019.

The cryptocurrencies Ripple and Ethereum yielded 50,000 and 33,000 results respectively in UK searches. Overall 5.8 per 1000 people in the UK made a search for cryptocurrency, compared with just 2.2 per 1000 people for traditional investments.

Australians the most investment savvy

The pattern is slightly different in other English speaking countries. The search volume per capita for all investments was highest in Australia, where 14.8 out of 1000 people searched for investment-related terms. 221,000 traditional investment searches were made, and 149,000 for cryptocurrency, a higher number per capita than in the UK.

BlockState analysed search results in several English speaking countries and found that, with the exception of Australia, Bitcoin was the most popular investment search term in each. In the USA, Canda, Ireland and South Africa, searchers were up to four times as likely to search for cryptocurrency than traditional investments.

Interest in cryptocurrency was particularly strong in Canada and Ireland, with 6.9 and 6.3 people per 1000 respectively searching for Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple. In the USA interest in cryptocurrency was also strong, with the term yielding 1.5 million searches compared with just over 500,000 searched for traditional investments.

Paul Claudius, founder and CEO of BlockState, commented on the analysis: “A major problem for small investors is that the number of investment opportunities is limited. At BlockState, we address this problem by representing ownership to assets in the form of digital tokens, making them more easily accessible to investors. This allows both company shares and other investment objects such as art or real estate to be made accessible to an international investor audience. This type of fundraising is realised through so-called smart contracts based on blockchain technology”.

BlockState’s analysis is based on search data for May 2018 to May 2019 for the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa and India.

Country

Bonds

Gold

Shares

Currency

Per 1000 people

Bitcoin

All Cryptos

Per 1000 people

USA

90.500

246.000

27.100

49.500

1.6

1.500.000

1.902.000

5.8

UK

33.100

49.500

14.800

27.100

2.2

301.000

383.600

5.8

Canada

12.100

33.100

2.900

14.800

2.3

201.000

250.300

6.9

Australia

165.000

27.100

6.600

12.100

8.9

110.000

149.200

6.0

New Zealand

5.400

3.600

880

2.400

2.9

18.100

22.400

4.7

Ireland

1.300

2.400

720

2.400

1.8

22.200

30.200

6.3

South Africa

3.600

9.900

2.900

4.400

0.4

90.500

105.200

1.9

India

33.100

301.000

40.500

49.500

0.3

301.000

377.600

0.3

About BlockState

BlockState was founded in 2018 in Zug, Switzerland, and has offices in Berlin, Germany. It is a fully compliant digital fundraising platform for asset owners and entrepreneurs. BlockState provides an end-to-end Security Tokenisation platform to digitise the ownership to privately owned assets and issue them to a global investor audience, making use of Blockchain technology for efficiency gains and financial product innovation. BlockState is supported by international investors and advisors from the financial market, technology and legal space. In 2019, BlockState will tokenise and issue its own company equity to investors globally.