Crypto winter be damned — bitcoin and ethereum investors are still laser-focused on an industry in free-fall being rocked by bankruptcies.
At least that’s what at least one Yahoo Finance in-house metric is revealing as investors continue to check in on beaten-down crypto prices at a high rate as 2022 draws to a close.
Despite the entire crypto asset class seemingly teetering on the brink of collapse — or perhaps because of it — the Yahoo Finance bitcoin quote page (BTC-USD) has racked up more than 157 million views so far in 2022, making it #8 on the year’s top ten trending tickers list.
And this coming during a year that saw war in Europe break out, historic rate hikes from the Fed surprise all summer long, and investors endure the worst environment for the stock market in over a decade.
Unsurprisingly, perennial favorite Tesla (TSLA) sits on top of the list.
The major U.S. indices, plus Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN), also bested bitcoin in terms of clicks.
But the leading crypto ticker managed to beat chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA) as well as 2021 favorite GameStop (GME), which rounds out the top ten.
Over prior crypto winters, user interest in Yahoo Finance crypto quote pages simply cratered.
For several years, not one crypto ticker bubbled up to Yahoo Finance’s top 10 trending tickers list on a seven-day rolling average.
However, bitcoin popped up again the first week of 2021 after the price of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency had rallied to fresh record highs — finally signaling the sector had emerged from the prior crypto winter.
Bitcoin notched its last record high late last year, and interest in the ticker trailed off a bit with the price during the first few quarters of 2022 — only to be revived during the Terra-Luna debacle over the summer.
Feel free to chalk off some of the interest as rubbernecking, but the resiliency in crypto interest does come with some irony as well. Many putative bitcoin HODLers are grappling with the reality that in some cases, the only thing “holding” their crypto is a foreign entity embroiled in bankruptcy court.
And for investors who might be quick to turn the page on 2022, the saga is only intensifying as we head into the new year. With the one-time number two exchange, FTX, down and out, the industry is now searching for cracks in the sole remaining giant, Binance.
At any rate, 2023 promises to deliver more life-or-death crypto news to keep investors hitting the refresh button.
But one has to wonder if it will get any stranger than the Sam Bankman-Fried perp walk. Stay tuned.
