Data from market intelligence platform Santiment reveals a significant shift in retail investor attention, with social media discussions moving away from Bitcoin and the broader cryptocurrency sector towards traditional assets like gold and silver. The firm's analysis of Social Volume—an indicator measuring unique mentions of a topic across major social platforms—shows that cryptocurrency chatter has cooled while interest in precious metals has spiked.
Santiment's data details a weekly breakdown for January. The first week saw muted social volume across all markets. In the second week, gold's Social Volume surged as its price reached new all-time highs. Bitcoin's price rose concurrently, but crypto-related social discussion remained subdued. A brief return of interest to digital assets occurred in the third week (January 19-22), coinciding with traders attempting to buy dips during a price retracement.
However, by the final week of January, silver took the lead in social media discussions, followed by gold, while crypto interest hit a low. This shift aligns with silver setting new records, briefly surging above $117.70 before falling below $102.70 within hours. Santiment analysts noted this pattern, stating, "Remember that when crypto retail begins FOMO’ing in, that’s generally where tops appear." They observed that retail traders, historically known for rotating within crypto sectors like memecoins or AI, are now "open to jumping sectors entirely" based on the latest price pumps.
Meanwhile, Google Trends data for the past seven days shows search interest for "crypto" peaked at 100 on January 21, while Bitcoin search interest hit 100 on January 27. Silver's search interest peaked earlier, on January 22. Bitcoin's price saw a bearish second half of January, retracing to around $88,000.
