Precious Metals Surge Past Cryptocurrency in Social Media Buzz: Santiment Report
Retail investors are increasingly focusing on precious metals like silver and gold over cryptocurrency on social platforms, with market intelligence firm Santiment noting these traditional assets are dominating online discussions on certain days as traders pursue profits.
Conversations surrounding silver and gold have surpassed cryptocurrency-related discourse on the majority of days throughout this month, as everyday investors have gravitated toward the recent upward momentum in precious metal valuations, data from market intelligence platform Santiment indicates.
Chatter about gold exploded during January's second week as the precious metal reached unprecedented price levels, and commanded the lion's share of social media traffic from Jan. 8 through Jan. 18, based on Sanbase data that Santiment shared via an X post on Tuesday.
January's third week witnessed attention temporarily shift back toward cryptocurrency as market participants sought to "try to buy dip on the way down," with digital assets leading social media conversations from Jan. 19 through Jan. 22.
Nevertheless, fascination with silver has experienced another surge as this precious metal achieved fresh all-time price peaks, Santiment reports. Silver additionally commanded the most conversation between Jan. 1 through Jan. 6.
"Cryptocurrency traders are well known for jumping between different sectors within digital assets based on the latest & greatest hype cycles, eg, memecoins vs AI vs blue chips, etc," Santiment's analysts said.
"But now, retail is proving to be open to jumping sectors entirely, with social data showing how gold, silver, and even equities are getting more and more interest based on wherever the latest pumps appear," they added.
Silver interest could mean a top: Santiment
The price of silver has experienced an upward trajectory and reached a fresh all-time peak of slightly above $117 on Tuesday, data from TradingView confirms.
Nevertheless, analysts at Santiment noted that the heightened attention and accompanying fear of missing out (FOMO) among everyday traders typically indicates a market peak is approaching.
"Case in point was today, when silver set records by surging above $117.70 and then falling back down below $102.70 just two hours later after retail hype peaked," they said.
As of Wednesday, silver is currently changing hands at approximately $113.
Google Trends shows crypto is ahead today
On the other hand, data from Google Trends reveals that during the past seven days, cryptocurrency-related searches reached a maximum of 100 on Jan. 21 before oscillating between a minimum of 61 on Saturday and a secondary peak of 93, which was achieved on Monday.
Search terms including "best crypto," alongside "what is crypto" and "crypto price," ranked among the top five associated queries. As of Wednesday, the metric stands at a score of 82.
During the identical timeframe, Bitcoin (BTC) registered its most significant search volume on Monday when it achieved a score of 100, while experiencing its weakest performance on Sunday with 58. Within the top five associated queries were terms like "Bitcoin price" and "Bitcoin USD." The current score sits at 86.
By contrast, Silver documented its peak search interest on Jan. 22 with a score of 100, while recording its minimum of 46 on Sunday. Several of its leading associated queries included "Silver price" and "Silver price today." On Wednesday, it registered a score of 68.