Ethereum: the countries most interested in the Merge

CoinGecko recently revealed which countries are most interested in the Ethereum Merge. 

Ethereum Merge: great interest also from countries

It ran a search on Google Trends data on the terms searched most frequently by people interested in the Merge after the Grey Glacier fork on 30 June 2022.

Combining this data, CoinGecko then assigned each country a “total search score” to compile a ranking. 

In first place overall was Singapore, the only country to have exceeded 300 in this particular ranking, and the only one to have achieved the highest score in the specific “Ethereum Merge” search. The accumulated lead over the other countries is remarkable, so much so that there is no doubt, according to the data from this research, as to which country is seeing the most interest in the Ethereum Merge. 

It is worth noting that Singapore is pushing hard to try to become the leading crypto hub in Southeast Asia, and the results of this research only reinforce the hypothesis that the country’s interest in cryptocurrencies is not just a corporate, industrial or professional interest. 

In other words, it is possible that underlying the special interest Singapore shows in the crypto world is a real common and widespread interest of its citizens in these new technologies. 

Tied for second place were Switzerland and Canada. 

Switzerland is one of the most important European crypto hubs, if not the most important in Europe, so perhaps a similar reasoning can be made for the Swiss country as for Singapore. 

On the other hand, Canada‘s tie for second place is surprising, given that it does not seem to be a country that has already moved that far into this world. 

However, it is worth mentioning that a role in its rise in the crypto world may have been played by the Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. 

In fact, the SEC persists in not wanting to approve spot ETFs on BTC and ETH in the US, i.e., the world’s largest financial market, but the issuers of these financial products have decided to put them on other exchanges anyway. The exchange that is “closest” to the US exchanges, not only territorially, is precisely that of Toronto, Canada, so much so that these products have achieved a resounding success that goes far beyond what they could have achieved had they been aimed only at the Canadian market. 

Perhaps this dynamic, which has been in place for more than a year now, has prompted a few more Canadians to take an interest in cryptocurrencies. 

The US ranked only fifth in this ranking, a significant gap from Canada. 

Fourth came Germany, which is known to be a country with a strong interest in cryptocurrencies. For instance, there seems to be a lot of Bitcoin and Ethereum nodes in Germany, which means that interest is deep in this country, thus also related to technology and not just financial speculation. 

The fear of inflation

It is worth mentioning that historically Germans have a real terror of inflation, after the terrible period they experienced after World War I when inflation turned into a colossal hyperinflationary spiral that threw millions of families out on the street. It is therefore not at all surprising that they are particularly interested in Bitcoin’s technical characteristics, and its deflationary nature in the long run. 

Ranked sixth was the Netherlands, which is one of the European countries where civil liberties are most valued, along with Switzerland. In truth, all of the top seven countries in this ranking are places where citizens particularly value their personal and civil liberties, which is hardly surprising. 

Cryptocurrencies, of which Ethereum is one of the leading representatives by far, are fundamentally a tool of freedom, so it is more than obvious that they are most successful where citizens are most sensitive to these issues. 

Seventh-ranked was Australia, which is one of the countries in the world with the most freedom in the economic sphere. 

Indeed, Australia is also one of the Western countries where the use of cryptocurrencies has become more widespread, a sign that the interest is not only speculative. 

In contrast, Turkey, eighth in this ranking, is somewhat surprising. But there may be two specific factors driving Turkish interest in cryptocurrencies. 

The first is inflation, which has skyrocketed to 80% this year. Indeed, by now it is safe to say that inflation in Turkey has turned into hyperinflation, although a colossal hyperinflationary spiral like that of the Weimar Republic in the 1920s, or like that of Venezuela, has not yet been triggered. 

Certainly, Turkish savers are looking for alternative solutions to the Turkish lira, which is why they may have long since begun to be interested in the US dollar for sure, but also in Bitcoin, which is easier to get and use outside the US. 

The second is the lack of civil liberties, which may drive more and more Turks to become interested in cryptocurrencies. 

It is worth noting, however, that in Turkey interest in “Ethereum Merge” research is actually low, while interest in “Ethereum PoW” research is very high. So it seems that they are particularly interested in the possible Ethereum PoW fork, probably because of the possible airdrop of new ETHPoW tokens. 

A similar argument could apply to Australia, where interest in the Ethereum Merge is there, albeit low, while interest in the PoW fork seems somewhat higher. 

In Canada, Germany, and the US, interest in the PoW fork is also high, but in these countries, the specific interest in the Merge is also high. 

In other words, it is specifically Singapore and Switzerland by far the two countries that seem most interested in the Ethereum Merge, so much so that in these two countries the interest in the PoW fork seems to be zero. 

CoinGecko co-founder and COO Bobby Ong commented on the results of this research saying: 

“The expectation for consolidation is at an all-time high, as its effects will spread throughout the cryptocurrency ecosystem. The top 8 rankings on this list seem to include countries with strong Ethereum communities, which may explain High research degrees in this study.

On a more technical level – there are a large number of miners who want to continue mining the Proof of Work version of Ethereum, which is likely to lead to the formation of multiple and controversial hard forks after the merger. 

So it’s no surprise that search terms like “Ethereum PoW” and “ETH PoW” have been trending higher in the past two months.”

In this regard, however, it is worth adding that the crypto market instead seems to be increasingly skeptical about the PoW fork. 

Indeed, the price of ETHW, i.e., the token that allows betting on the possible future value of the possible new cryptocurrency that could be born with this fork, has plummeted 33% in just one week. 

While ETH is now worth more than $1,600, ETHW is listed at $33, which is 48 times less in value. 

This means either that the crypto market is betting against the PoW fork, or that it does not think it can be very successful.