Bitcoin continues to set record highs this week, however, according to a researcher in the crypto field, retail investors still seem hesitant to return to the market.
Meanwhile, demand for spot Bitcoin ETFs is surging, with inflows exceeding $1 billion each day on Thursday and Friday — the first time this has happened two days in a row.
Bitcoin’s price increase is “led by institutions.”
André Dragosch – head of research at Bitwise shared on Friday that:
“Bitcoin has set a new all-time high (ATH), but retail investors are almost nowhere to be seen,” pointing out the lack of interest from Google searches for the keyword “Bitcoin,” even though the coin has consistently set peaks over the past week.
“The latest price increase was mainly driven by institutions,” Dragosch said.
According to data from Google Trends and CoinMarketCap, global search interest for the keyword “Bitcoin” on Google only increased by 8% in the week from July 6 to 12 compared to the previous week (June 29 to July 5).
This increase coincided with Bitcoin breaking its old ATH of $111,970 on Wednesday and continuing to climb to $118,780 on Friday.
However, the search interest for the keyword “Bitcoin” is currently down 60% compared to the week from November 10 to 16, 2024, right after Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election.
That week marked the beginning of a month-long rally, bringing the price of Bitcoin to the $100,000 mark for the first time on December 5.
Retail investors feel they have “missed the boat.”
Some Bitcoin advocates argue that retail investors may see the current price as too high to enter the market. Bitcoin commentator Lindsay Stamp shared:
“I think many retail investors seeing the price of one Bitcoin at $117,000 will think: Well, I missed the boat and won’t bother to learn more.”
In agreement, Cedric Youngelman – host of the Bitcoin Matrix podcast also wrote on X on Saturday:
“In your opinion, what price does Bitcoin need to reach for retail investors to wake up? I’ll answer first: I think they won’t come back for a long time.”
At the same time, on-chain Bitcoin analyst Willy Woo stated that Bitcoin's upward trend is far from over.
“This rally still has a lot of room to grow,” Woo shared on the X platform on Saturday.
At the same time, spot Bitcoin ETFs had an impressive trading week, with total inflows reaching $2.72 billion over 5 days, according to data from Farside.
If holders of Bitcoin ETF shares are retail customers, it may be time to reassess the current understanding of on-chain data, as this reflects the real demand from individual investors for Bitcoin.