By: Stacy Muur, Web3 Researcher

Compiled by: xiaozou, Golden Finance

Bitcoin is halfway through its second decade and the 20th anniversary is not far away. During this period, the crypto world has also undergone unpredictable changes due to market sentiment, political strategies, and the alternation of bull and bear market cycles.

Despite these fluctuations, new users continue to enter the crypto world through various channels. Which of these is the most popular? Let’s explore the answer in this article.

1. Common keywords

To better understand how user interests have changed, I analyzed Google Trends over the past five years. This period covers both bull and bear market cycles, providing an objective perspective.

People frequently search for general concepts like “cryptocurrency,” “blockchain,” and “token.” As expected, the volume of searches for these keywords is directly proportional to the market’s upward movement.

But these searches don’t reveal intent. To better understand user interests, it’s helpful to take a closer look at intent-based searches.

Throughout history, the main uses of cryptocurrencies have been trading, investing, and speculating. Airdrops followed closely behind, but not as popular as the recently frequently searched keywords such as "trade" and "invest". Despite this, passive income remains a topic of interest to savvy cryptocurrency users.

2. Transaction-related inquiries

Since we’re on the subject of transactions, let’s take it a step further and dive into user brand awareness and key entry paths.

The attention paid by users to topics related to CEX (centralized exchanges) and DEX (decentralized exchanges) reflects the dominance of CEX trading volume over DEX trading volume. Despite various opinions, DeFi is still a small part of the broader crypto market, and centralized exchanges like Binance should not be underestimated in this part of the market.

Key observations:

• CEX’s popularity peaked in late December 2019 and fell to a low in mid-March 2021.
• Binance has been leading in search popularity for the top centralized exchanges in 2024.

• Interest in DEXs hit a low in the summer of 2021 but reached an all-time high in late November 2024. This was likely driven by Bitcoin’s new bull run and a surge in meme coin activity on Solana DEXs.
• Among the leading DEXs by TVL, PancakeSwap dominated the search popularity in May 2021. In December 2024, Uniswap took the lead, followed by Raydium.

• The popularity of crypto derivatives peaked in 2021, but protocols like Hyperliquid have recently seen a resurgence of interest, compared to Drift Protocol and Jupiter.
• The prediction market surged in November 2024, driven by Trump-related discussions on Polymarket. However, the enthusiasm quickly fell, reflecting a similar trend as in November 2020.

3. Token search dynamics

The search popularity of the word "crypto" is only matched by "Bitcoin", which is the main query term for crypto-related topics.

Search interest for Bitcoin peaked during the 2021 bull run and hit its lowest point at the end of 2019. Even after Bitcoin reached a price of $100,000 for the first time in late 2024, it failed to regain its former popularity.

Meanwhile, query frequency for other top market cap tokens including Ethereum has remained relatively stable, although XRP has seen a notable increase following its recent rally.

4. Narrative Heat

When comparing user interest in major verticals such as DeFi, RWA, DePIN, GameFi, and the recently popular AI x Crypto, user interest in the first two is sustainable. In contrast, other fields rely more on hype.

Recently, there has been a surge in interest in the RWA and AI x Crypto space, with DePIN, DeFi, and GameFi still taking a backseat.

The popularity of Meme Coins surges to unprecedented levels by the end of 2024. Meanwhile, AI-related tokens are gathering attention, with March 2024 being a critical moment.

5. Keywords for 2024

Now that we have a general idea of the current interest and main attention projects in Web3, let me share the most popular search queries in the crypto space right now (sorted by search query volume).

• Bitcoin - the unrivaled attention magnet
• Ethereum
• DEX
• CEX
• L1 and L2 - Equally matched
• DeFi
• Altcoin
• RWA
• AI Agent
• Memecoin
• DePIN
• NFT
• GameFi
• Metaverse

Here is a ranking of the largest Web3 brands:

• Bitcoin
• XRP
• TON
• Binance
• Ethereum
• Solana
• USDT
• TRON
• Bybit
• Metamask
• OKX

Searches for all other brands, including those frequently discussed on Crypto Twitter like Vitruals, Ethena, or any of the L2 chains, lag far behind the above brands.

What can you see?

Most topics discussed on Crypto Twitter don’t reach a global audience. Retail investors still join the crypto world through centralized exchanges, and DeFi captures only a small portion of crypto interest. Many of today’s hot brands are still beyond the retail audience.