“The learning phase is over. A new era is coming,” says CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju.
Google search interest for the term “onchain” surged to an all-time high in May, according to Google Trends data.
Over the past five years, worldwide search interest in the term hovered mostly under 25 out of 100, with a brief spike to around 30 in March.
However, between May 26 and June 1, search interest in “onchain” reached 100 on the index.
Google boss Sundar Pichai unveiled that its AI model Gemini is getting put into a slew of the company’s products and services, including its flagship Search product.
Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) model Gemini is being weaved into much of the tech giant’s technology. The AI will soon appear in Gmail, YouTube and the company’s smartphones.
In a keynote speech at the company’s I/O 2024 developer conference on May 14, Google CEO Sundar Pichai revealed some of the upcoming places its AI model will appear.
Pichai mentioned AI 121 times in his 110-minute keynote as the topic took center stage, and Gemini, which launched in December 2023, took the limelight.
Another impact of Elon Musk’s Twitter limits is lower search visibility on Google, according to SEO experts.
Twitter’s new rate limits severely affect the indexing and display of tweets on Google’s search engine, limiting the reach of the information shared on the microblogging site.
According to web search industry outlet Search Engine Land, Google Search has dropped more than half of the indexed URLs from Twitter over the past few days.
On July 3, it noted the number of tweets indexed by Google dropped by more than 60% from 471 million to 180 million.
On July 4, The Verge shared a statement from a Google spokesperson who said, “We’re aware that our ability to crawl Twitter.com has been limited, affecting our ability to display tweets and pages from the site in search results.”
Search engine optimization consultant Glen Gabe posted a decline in search visibility from Twitter accounts. “This is based on Google not being able to crawl those URLs (due to Twitter redirecting non-logged-in users),” he explained.
As @rustybrick reported this AM, tweets are dropping out of the SERPs based on the latest changes on the platform. Search visibility is dropping, and spot-checking those rankings reveals those tweets or Twitter accounts are not ranking anymore: https://t.co/18qCONZ4XV pic.twitter.com/ggH6QVTRUw
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) July 3, 2023
Technologist Barry Schwartz also conducted a few tests, noting a similar drop-off in indexed tweets.
Google dropped over 50% of the indexed URLs it has from Twitter since Friday, after Twitter blocked signed-out users from seeing tweets (I know, this is a site command and not that accurate...) https://t.co/gVY8m41wcg pic.twitter.com/AoyfbBI0YU
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) July 3, 2023
When tested by Cointelegraph, Google returned about 665 million results when searching “site:twitter.com” so the figure is seemingly dynamic and dependent on Google’s crawlers.
On July 2, Twitter executive chairman Elon Musk announced the company would controversially impose temporary limits on the number of posts users will be allowed to read daily, citing “extreme levels of data scraping and system manipulation.”
Related: Twitter suspends memecoin-linked AI bot after Elon Musk’s ‘scam crypto’ claim
The move has been largely criticized by the crypto community, which relies heavily on Twitter to communicate and share information. Lower tweet visibility on Google would also reduce the amount of crypto-related content originating from Twitter.
Decentralized Twitter rival Mastodon has recently seen a surge in activity, increasing active users since read restrictions were imposed on Twitter.
A Twitter rival from the Meta-owned Instagram called Threads is also set for launch this week.
Magazine: Cryptocurrency trading addiction: What to look out for and how it is treated
According to unnamed sources, the home of Ryan Salame, the former co-chief executive of FTX Digital Markets, was searched by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Thursday. The grounds for the raid remain unknown, and neither Salame nor his legal representative have offered any statement concerning the situation. FBI Conducts Mysterious Search on […]
Yandex, the largest Russian search engine, has updated its currency converter, adding cryptocurrencies. The widget now shows the rates of these coins in a number of fiat currencies, with plans to introduce crypto-to-crypto pairs in the future as well. Yandex Integrates Leading Cryptocurrencies Into Its Currency Converter Users of Russia’s leading search engine, Yandex, can […]
Authorities in South Korea are reportedly seeking help from officials in Serbia to expedite the arrest of embattled Terraform Labs CEO and co-founder Do Kwon. According to Bloomberg, a senior Justice Ministry official and a team from the prosecutor’s office in Seoul traveled to Serbia last week amid reports that Kwon is hiding in the […]
The post Hunt for Do Kwon Intensifies As South Korean Authorities Work With Serbian Officials: Report appeared first on The Daily Hodl.
Total transactions on the Ethereum network outstripped Bitcoin more than fourfold, but Bitcoin was still the most searched cryptocurrency of 2022.
The Ethereum network eclipsed Bitcoin in terms of total transaction volume last year, though the king of crypto has managed to retain its crown when it comes to online search interest.
According to data from Nasdaq and Ycharts shared on Reddit on Jan. 2, there were 338% more Ether (ETH) transactions in 2022 (408.5 million) Bitcoin (BTC) ones (93.1 million).
The values shown in the chart are in millions of transactions, with the average daily transactions at around 1.1 million for ETH and 255,000 for BTC.
However, transaction volumes on the Bitcoin network were steadier and more periodic than o Ethereum, which experienced much more volatility in transaction volumes. This was due to spikes in demand at certain times such as NFT launches and other gas-guzzling events such as XEN minting.
Ethereum’s heftier transaction volumes have continued into the new year, with the Ethereum transaction count on Jan. 2 reaching 924,614, a 300% increase compared to Bitcoin’s 229,191 on the same day, according to Bitinfocharts.
The analyst who posted the metrics said he was “skeptical about people saying that a flippening could happen someday,” adding that those advocating for it have reason to do so now.
A flippening occurs when one chain surpasses a higher-ranked one for the same metric, in this case, transactions and activity.
The charts also do not include layer 2 transactions, which would put Ethereum even further ahead of Bitcoin for this metric. According to L2beat, the number of L2 transactions per second actually surpassed those on layer 1 Ethereum in mid-October and has remained above it ever since.
Related: Why the battle for low or no transaction fees really matters
However, while Ethereum may be ahead in transaction and activity terms, Bitcoin remains the most-searched cryptocurrency online.
On Jan. 1, a newsletter from “In Bitcoin We Trust” revealed that BTC attracted the most attention on the Google search engine in 2022, with 28.4 million monthly Google searches across the world.
The report concurred with Cointelegraph, which reported on Dec. 23 that Ethereum did not make second or even third place for search popularity. These spots were occupied by memecoins Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Dogecoin (DOGE) respectively.
Ethereum, in fourth place, had 3.8 million global monthly searches, according to the data.
Alphabet’s revenue from Google advertising was down in Q3 2022, with decreased search spending from financial services and cryptocurrency subcategories highlighted.
The latest earnings call from Google’s parent company, Alphabet, highlighted decreased search advertising spending from financial services and cryptocurrency subcategories.
Alphabet released its earnings report for Q3 on Oct. 25, outlining a 6% increase in revenue totaling $69.1 billion in comparison to Q3 last year. Revenues were down slightly from Q2 2022, dropping from $69.7 billion.
However the breakdown of revenues from Google Services, which includes its advertising earnings, showed that this segment increased from $58.8 billion to $61.3 billion over the past year.
Philipp Schindler, Google’s chief business officer, noted particular strife in the financial and the cryptocurrency sectors in particular with notable drops in advertising spending quarter-on-quarter during Alphabet’s earnings call on Oct. 25:
"We did see a pullback in spending by some advertisers in certain areas in search ads. For example, in financial services we saw a pullback in insurance, loan, mortgage and crypto subcategories."
Google updated its financial products and services policy in July 2022 to clarify the scope and requirement for adverts relating to cryptocurrency businesses, services and products. This set out rules for advertisers of exchanges and wallet services targeting countries including France, Germany, South Korea, the Philippines, the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong and Thailand.
Related: Google gets in on Ethereum Merge excitement with nifty easter egg
Given that they met certain regulatory requirements within these jurisdictions, advertisers could continue to promote their crypto-related products and services through Google’s advertising platform.
The change came several months after Google gave crypto-related advertising the green light in August 2021. The multinational tech giant had previously banned crypto and initial coin offering-related advertisements back in June 2018.
Global markets and cryptocurrency markets continue to weather difficult times, with the latter enduring what analytics firms like Glassnode have dubbed as the worst bear market on record.
Nevertheless the decreased advertising spending from the cryptocurrency sector does not reflect Google’s attitude towards the space. Google announced a partnership with American cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase in October to allow payments for cloud services with Bitcoin and Ether in 2023.
The new bill will also compel cryptocurrency exchanges to hand over information that could assist police in criminal investigations.
Victorian Police in Australia will soon be granted new powers to seize cryptocurrency and digital assets from criminals, as well as compel platforms to hand over information about suspects.
According to a statement released by Victorian premier Daniel Andrews on Aug. 2, new laws were introduced to parliament on Tuesday under the Major Crime and Community Safety Legislation Amendment Bill 2022, with the aim of cracking down on organized crime in the state.
The new bill is expected to give authorities “greater power” to identify and seize digital assets, in response to the growing use of digital cryptocurrencies by organized crime.
The laws will uphold also require crypto exchanges disclose information to assist with criminal investigations in the same way that banks would.
“They will be able to compel cryptocurrency platforms to hand over information about suspects like banks currently must, and seize digital ‘wallets’.”
It will also give police greater search powers to obtain electronic data when executing search warrants and make the criminal’s “forfeited property” more easily available to compensate victims of the crime.
Speaking to Cointelegraph, Michael Bacina, a digital asset specialist at Piper Alderman, said that as the wording of the Bill has not yet been made public, one of the challenges he sees is around legislating for digital assets when it cuts across state and federal borders.
“A challenge of legislating for digital assets is that state jurisdiction often stops at the border, so ensuring there is consistency of approach between different states and countries, is paramount.”
Bacina also noted that police will need “proper training in the technology of seizure and securing private keys of digital wallets,” but also noted that criminals transacting in digital assets “provides a valuable tool for police in combatting crime, as transactions leave an immutable trail of evidence on a public ledger which is extraordinarily difficult to alter after the fact.”
Victorian Minister for Police, Anthony Carbines acknowledged that criminals are evolving their strategies, noting “we need to be just as quick in empowering our police to respond to new ways of offending.”
Related: 74% of public agencies feel under-equipped for crypto investigations: Report
Earlier this year, popular crypto monitoring tool, Chainalysis estimates that at least $10 billion worth of cryptocurrency is held by wallet addresses associated with illicit activity as of early 2022.
Bacina however noted that the analytics firm also reports that illicit usage is at its lowest proportion in the crypto asset ecosystem, “so further reducing the illicit usage of digital assets can only instill greater confidence in the digital asset and cryptocurrency ecosystem.”
Law enforcement in Greece has recently tried to locate Ruja Ignatova, founder of the infamous Onecoin pyramid scheme. According to a leading Greek daily, investigators acted on intelligence suggesting she was still in the country. Also known as ‘Cryptoqueen,’ Ignatova was last seen boarding a plane to Greece several years ago. Authorities in Athens Try […]