The most popular crypto in the UK is not Bitcoin (or Ethereum)
Bitcoin (BTC) may have the most name recognition in the cryptocurrency space, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the most popular – at least in certain countries around Europe.
A year-long analysis of Google Trends by online casino experts, AskGamblers, revealed the most popular cryptocurrencies in different European countries according to the volume of Google searches.
The research showed that while Bitcoin was the most popular cryptocurrency across Europe as a whole, it was beaten out in countries such as the UK, Russia, France and Italy by a very unlikely competitor.
Britain’s most popular crypto? A Meme coin
Yes, Shiba Inu (SHIB) – the much maligned meme coin – proved to be more popular than Bitcoin and Ethereum (ETH) in seven European countries overall, and the second most searched coin in the entire continent.
Shiba Inu received equal parts derision and fanfare when it launched in mid-2021. Shiba Inu was created amid the rise in Dogecoin’s (DOGE) popularity when it was courted by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, claiming no practical utility whatsoever, instead hoping to capitalize on the appetite for meme coins that existed at the time.
Also, half of the Shiba Inu coin supply (over 500 billion coins) was sent to Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin in 2021 as a marketing stunt, meaning a large portion of the coin’s supply was in the hands of a single individual – which could have lowered coin price, Buterin had decided to sell his holdings.
Fortunately, Buterin declared that he wanted no part of the Shiba Inu, and generously donated over $1 billion of the shipment to the India Covid Relief Fund, before irreversibly burning the rest of the tokens that were collectively worth around $6 billion at the time.
The interest in Shiba Inu from the UK and other countries around Europe likely stems from SHIB’s 30,000% price increase through 2021, when it rose up the cryptocurrency market cap rankings, briefly occupying a top ten spot, before falling just fast as it climbed.
Recently, plans have been initiated to expand the Shiba Inu ecosystem to include a Layer-2 scaling platform, a dedicated dollar-pegged stablecoin, and even a dedicated metaverse.
Europe’s favorite cryptocurrencies
Among the rest of Europe’s most searched cryptocurrencies, Ethereum followed Bitcoin and Shiba Inu in third place, followed by Cardano (ADA), and finally Dogecoin (DOGE).
The presence of two meme coins in the top five suggests that Europe’s crypto-curious are more than willing to explore cryptocurrencies that don’t take themselves too seriously. It also points to the stratospheric reach meme coins can achieve among the population compared to other, more straight-forward cryptos.
“With 38 million crypto users in Europe and thousands of cryptocurrencies on the market to choose from, it’s fascinating to see which one people are most interested in investing in. Although Bitcoin is the most popular overall, interest in Shiba Inu has grown to surpass Bitcoin in major countries like Russia and the UK,” said an AskGamblers spokesperson.
