Data shows XRP and Ethereum are picking up social volume as investors have seemingly started to lose interest in Bitcoin.
Bitcoin Social Volume Shows Drop, Traders Shift Focus Towards XRP & Ethereum
According to data from the on-chain analytics firm Santiment, BTC’s social volume has decreased since its surge in March. The “social volume” here refers to a metric that tells us about the degree of discussion around a given cryptocurrency that social media users are participating in currently.
The indicator measures this in terms of the total number of text documents (that, is the posts on various social media platforms like Reddit, Telegram, and Twitter) that are making mentions of the asset in question.
Something to keep in mind is that the social volume doesn’t put any weight on the actual amount of discussion taking place inside any post; what this means is that even if a text document mentions the term several times, its contribution towards the metric’s value would still remain just one unit.
The benefit of this restriction is that it provides a better picture of the amount of talk that the coin is receiving from the general user. If the limitation didn’t exist, then a long, isolated post with a large number of references to the cryptocurrency could possibly skew the indicator on its own.
Now, here is a chart that shows the trend in the social volumes of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance Coin, XRP, Cardano, and Dogecoin over the past year:
How the social volume of the various assets in the sector has changed in recent days | Source: Santiment on Twitter
As displayed in the above graph, the Bitcoin social volume observed a huge surge in March as the asset’s value first observed a hard plunge and then recovered with a spectacular rally.
Sharp price action like this always brings attention to any cryptocurrency, so it makes sense that social media users started participating in huge amounts of discussion around the coin.
Since topping out in April, however, the asset’s price has been in an overall downtrend. The social volume has also been going in a downward trajectory alongside it, although the indicator has observed a small rise during the recent volatile event.
The high volatility had come as the US SEC had sued Binance and Coinbase, back to back, leading to widespread panic in the market. As mentioned before, it’s not particularly uncommon to see the social volume jump during such rapid swings in price.
Ethereum, XRP, and Binance Coin also saw a spike in discussions related to them during this event, surpassing the levels they have seen during the last few months.
While the volatility obviously has a part to play in this rise, it’s also possible that the slowdown in discussions related to Bitcoin has also contributed to it. It would appear that investors have been gradually losing interest in BTC, and are now shifting their focus towards altcoins such as XRP.
XRP Price
At the time of writing, XRP is trading around $0.5, down 4% in the last week.
Looks like the asset has been moving sideways | Source: XRPUSD on TradingView
Featured image from Kanchanara on Unsplash.com, charts from TradingView.com, Santiment.net