Bitcoin Social Dominance Hits 4-Month High: What It Means

[Ben Graham]

Data shows the Bitcoin Social Dominance has spiked to a 4-month high, something that has tended to be a reversal signal for the market.

Social Media Is Shifting Attention To Bitcoin

According to data from analytics firm Santiment, social media talk has recently become more concentrated on Bitcoin. The indicator of relevance here is the “Social Dominance,” which measures the percentage of cryptocurrency-related discussions on social media that a given asset accounts for.

The metric gauges social media talk using the Social Volume indicator, which tracks the total number of posts/threads/comments that contain unique mentions of the coin. To give a relative measure, the Social Dominance takes the Social Volume of the asset and compares it against the combined Social Volume of the top 100 digital assets.

Now, here is the chart shared by Santiment that shows the trend in the Social Dominance for Bitcoin and a few major altcoins over the last few months:

As shown in the graph above, Bitcoin Social Dominance spiked on Friday as the cryptocurrency’s price crashed. At the peak of this surge, 36.4% of all cryptocurrency-related discussions involved BTC. This was the highest that the metric had been since July 13th, when its value touched a high of 37.6%. Interestingly, this previous spike coincided with a top for the asset.

Historically, digital assets have tended to move in a way that goes contrary to the expectations of the majority, so too much excitement or FUD among the retail social media crowd can act as a reversal signal.

The July high in Social Dominance signaled FOMO among the traders, which could be why Bitcoin’s bullish momentum paused then. Another example of the pattern came in August, when this time Ethereum saw a surge in its Social Dominance, reaching a peak value of 19.1%. Alongside this market excitement, BTC and others hit a top again.

Given that the latest spike in the indicator has come with a market crash, it’s possible that the high amount of discussions points to panic among the investors. “Though not a guaranteed crypto bottom signal, probabilities of a market reversal greatly increases when social dominance for Bitcoin surges,” explained the analytics firm.

The Social Dominance only contains information about social media platforms. One useful way of gauging the sentiment in the sector as a whole is through Alternative‘s Fear & Greed Index, which takes into account several factors, including social media data itself.

During the weekend, the Fear & Greed Index fell to a value of just 10, indicating a strong extreme fear sentiment among Bitcoin investors. The last time the index went this low was in February, and the last time it was lower was all the way back during the 2022 bear market.

BTC Price

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $95,300, down over 10% in the last week.