Insights from TikTok data into the retail market interest for 2024
In my Manifesto, where I outlined my initial plans for developing a social interest indicator, I discussed how retail market participants interest can be quantified using social media data. Unlike „X“ (formerly Twitter), which primarily serves as a information platform for the broader crypto community, including developers and institutional investors, TikTok is a key platform for short-term real market participants. Therefore, I focused on a metrics to quantify the TikTok community interests for cryptocurrencies by tracking the view counts of relevant hashtags on TikTok. Specifically, for a Bitcoin indicator, I extracted daily TikTok view counts for videos tagged with #bitcoin. After importing this data into Tradingview, I analyzed its correlation with Bitcoin’s price movements throughout 2024. (Image 1) At first sight, a pattern can be found: Both the bullish rally in February-March and the post-election rally in November coincided with increasing TikTok view counts.
Image 1: Correlation of Bitcoin chart and TikTok view counts.
To elaborate and illustrate my observations, I added drawings on price and view count charts. (Image 2) For establishing a baseline, I took the view numbers from January 2024, which were fluctuating between 20 and 35 million per day. A rising channel of the views with higher lows and higher highs can be observed, marked in turquoise, at second half of February. The daily viewing count reached a maximum of 72.8 million views on 21st of March, more than double than the baseline range. During this period, Bitcoin’s price appreciated by 70% from 7th of February to a new all time high on 73 777 USDT on 14th of March. In order to correlate markets moves and view counts, the price rally preceded peak social media interest. This suggests that early investors capitalized on heightened retail engagement, distributing their holdings during the price consolidation phase. The gradual consolidation lead to a reduced interest on TikTok. By July, TikTok views returned to a 25-40 million range, where they remained until the U.S. election on November 5th. Following the election, daily views doubled to 80 million within ten days, coinciding with another bullish rally. On December 5th, TikTok recorded a new annual high of 94 million views, corresponding with Bitcoin’s historic breach of the 100 000 USDT mark, which was a widely reported event on the news. These two highs in views (red circles) were also accompanied with higher lows (orange circles), pointing out a increased interest trend on TikTok. Then, the TikTok view spiked to above 130 Million views a day from 17 to 19th of December. Notably, Bitcoin reached a new all-time high of 108 353 USDT on 17th of December. This surge in social media activity signaled extreme retail euphoria, often an indicator of a market top. Following this peak, view counts plummeted to one-third of their high, breaking the prior uptrend indicating that the enthusiasm of investors and retail investors upon the election subsided.
Image 2: Illustrated correlations of TikTok view counts and BTC price.
Unless significant policy announcements emerge from the incoming Trump administration regarding cryptocurrency regulation or adoption, Bitcoin may enter a sideways consolidation phase in the near term. Tracking TikTok social interest as a indicator offers valuable insights into retail behavior, which was confirmed by its alignment with Bitcoin’s price movements in 2024. Therefore, this metric passed the initial screening as predictor of retail-driven market dynamics.