Spot exchange-traded funds might have excited institutional investors of Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC), but the frenzy is yet to catch up on retail.
What happened: The King Coin's social activity dipped significantly since peaking on the ETF approval day in early January, according to LunarCrush.
Social activity is a widely used metric in crypto circles to gauge the sentiment among retail investors, a proxy for private individuals with small holdings.
Almost hard to believe but #Bitcoin social activity has trended downwards, ever since January 10th when the $BTC ETF approval happened.
— LunarCrush (@LunarCrush) May 6, 2024
If retail is here, they're incredibly silent.
View the data at pic.twitter.com/NYjImdn4qi
The data shows that socially-driven engagements like views, likes, comments, and retweets declined in the last four months. Posts by cryptocurrency content creators also failed to generate traction.
All this happened while the price of the world's largest digital asset was pumping, hitting a new all-time high past $73,000 in March.
Google Trends data narrated a similar story, with search interest halving from its peak in early March.
Why it matters: Bitcoin has generated considerable media coverage since investment vehicles tracking its spot price started trading in the U.S. market. Days of net positive flows in ETFs have invariably applied upward price pressure.
However, the last month proved rough for the general cryptocurrency market, and Bitcoin in particular. The King Coin plummeted more than 15% in April, one of the worst declines in recent history.
The corrective phase might have prompted retail to take a cautionary approach, restricting their investments in the space.
Price action: Bitcoin was trading at $63,695 at the time of writing, following a 1.13% dip in the last 24 hours, according to the data from Benzinga Pro. Trading volumes almost hit $30 billion in the 24-hour period, marking a 64% jump.
Photo by Shutterstock