The Reddit r/bitcoin forum doesn’t seem to be mentioning the bitcoin price much, these days.
Reddit Isn’t Helping BTC Much, Anymore
The bitcoin subreddit has come a long way since 2013. At the time of writing, it’s up to 1.3 million subscribers, which is more than double than the numbers seen during the time of bitcoin’s 2017 all-time high.
Nic Carter – a partner at Castle Island Ventures – asked a few years ago on Twitter:
Does anyone else remember the ‘bitcoin: magic internet money’ MS Paint ad circulating on Reddit in 2013? I loved that stupid ad… No matter what happens with initial coin offerings [ICOs], hard forks, Goldman, anti-money laundering and know your customer [KYC] regulations, or China, Russia and the USA, bitcoin will always be magic internet money to me.
This ad, however, stirred up quite a bit of controversy after it was created. Many users of Reddit and those involved in crypto communities felt that the ad had run its course and that it was time to remove it from the history books as a means of ensuring bitcoin’s legitimacy. For the currency to be taken seriously, they argued, childish ads such as this one would need to be wiped away.
Others however, felt that bitcoin should be “kept weird,” and that the ad assisted in that regard.
The problem, as of late, is that the mentioned subreddit and many of its “crypto subdivisions” appear to be ignoring the bitcoin price a lot. The price of BTC used to be a hot topic for many of these forums, but now, it looks like users have moved onto other things. Despite the growing numbers of subscribers, the BTC price isn’t as popular as it once was.
Chart Star chief executive David Gilbert believes that this is a sign of changing focus. People are now more interested in the news and goings-on surrounding bitcoin, rather than what number it will hit in the future. He believes that this is because bitcoin is becoming far more mainstream, and people have gotten used to the currency’s rapid movements.
In a statement, he explained:
As institutional investors and more mainstream companies have expressed interest in bitcoin, it’s managed to break away from the dependence of niche communities like r/bitcoin. It’s a sign that bitcoin has matured and is starting to hit the mainstream.
Only Smaller Groups Are Interested in Price
While communities dedicated to uncovering crypto prices are still out there, Gilbert believes that these communities are relatively small by comparison, and that many are far more interested in the alleged prices of lesser-known altcoins. He states:
I suspect there’re entities out there right now mining social data for insights. I would expect it works best for medium-sized market cap cryptos and using more sophisticated sentiment analysis techniques on the comments than frequency counts.