Once again, Google Trends data have revealed that the searches for Bitcoin price ticker “BTC” has spiked to an all-time high. In the new trends, the BTC search worldwide went from a value of 2 to 64 and then further to the maximal level of search interest of 100 in just 3 days.
This happened between 29th August and 31st August, and the value dropped back to 74 by 3rd September. The sudden surge seen in the search levels of BTC seems unusual as the searches for Bitcoin have stayed at the level of 8.
The data appears even more unusual when the trends from the past 5 years are compared for “BTC” and “Bitcoin” as both the terms hit a previous high during Bitcoin’s winter bull run.
The recent surge was not gone unnoticed, and according to the trends, the most significant spike in the search results came from Romania. But there is a natural and reasonable explanation behind this sudden rise in the popularity.
Tropical cyclone Dorian is wreaking chaos across the Bahamas turned into a hurricane and is intensifying with every day to become a category 4 hurricane. It turned into a category 5 hurricane on 1st September.
The surprising thing here is that BTC is not just the ticker symbol for Bitcoin, but it’s also the name of a telecommunication service provider in the Bahamas- the Bahamas Telecommunications Company(BTC).
Local media has reported how the hurricane is making the situations worst in the islands, and this has affected the telecom networks- notably BTC and the difficulties that the victims are facing without the mobile services. This sudden spike can also be used to manipulate the cryptocurrency in the future, a concern that is frequently cited by the regulators.
