Ethereum Rally Fails to Spark Chinese Interest as Bitcoin Hogs Limelight

Racing ethereum (ETH) prices have seemingly failed to impress Chinese crypto users, with interest in the token – as well as blockchain technology – almost unchanged despite record-breaking recent altcoin rallies.

Data from WeChat shared on Twitter by Primitive Crypto co-founder Dovey Wan showed that while interest in bitcoin (BTC) spiked as the token broke through the USD 20,000 and then the USD 30,000 threshold, ETH and blockchain interest barely even fluctuated – even when ETH was posting gains of over 100%.

WeChat keywords: “Bitcoin” – green, “Blockchain” – purple, “Ethereum” – yellow:

Google Trends data on BTC- and ETH-related searches originating in China appear to back this up, with BTC activity at sky-high levels, while ETH remained more or less stable.

However, these trends may be more indicative of the way crypto-related news is reported in China than anything else.

Blog posts and videos about bitcoin have become a popular subject matter for the internet celebrity and middle school teacher Li Yongle, helping boost the profile of the token yet further in the nation – although Li claims he does not own any crypto.

On search engines like Baidu, bitcoin has dominated the news of late, and at the time of writing the token’s latest price escapades remain on the News section’s front page.

The article in question from media outlet The Paper focuses entirely on BTC, and the only reference to an altcoin comes in a brief paragraph about Ripple’s recent XRP-linked regulatory woes…and how they have impacted BTC prices.

Typically, if altcoins are featured at all in Chinese reports, they tend to be a mere afterword.

Also on Baidu, blockchain-related search terms have remained popular in recent months, particularly in the education and learning categories, where job-seekers have been searching for information about how best to become a blockchain developer or related specialist. Three blockchain-related job or learning terms regularly made the top 20 throughout 2020.

Moreover, Chinese buyers are widely thought to be relatively active in the altcoin market.

Regardless, the official messaging from Beijing appears to have remained constant: Stay away from BTC and the like, blockchain is the righteous path.

In a recent article from the state-owned People’s Daily, journalists warned that BTC is a “high-risk asset, not a safe haven,” with colorful examples of investors who lost their life savings on crypto investments.

At the time of writing (09:20 UTC), ETH trades at USD 1,035 and is up by 3% in a day and 45% in a week. The price rallied by 74% in a month and 642% in a year.

At the same time, BTC is down by more than 1% in a day, trading at USD 31,436, and trimming its weekly gains to less than 19%. It jumped by 64% in a month and 316% in a year.
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Learn more:
What’s in Store for Ethereum in 2021?
Chinese State Media Keeps Surprising With Bitcoin ‘Outshining’ Gold Prediction
Chinese State Media: Ignore Bitcoin Hype, Stay on the Blockchain Path
Current Bitcoin ‘Mania’ ‘Unsustainable’, Long-Term Target – Over USD 146K – JPMorgan