Facebook’s Libra Surpasses Bitcoin on Crypto Twitter but Sentiment Stinks

 
A survey conducted by cryptocurrency data firm The TIE has revealed that U.S. residents are tweeting more about Facebook’s Libra coin than bitcoin.

According to The TIE, 43.8 percent of U.S. residents are tweeting about Libra. The percentage tweeting about bitcoin, on the other hand, is 39.8 percent.

Other countries where Libra tweets were notable included the UK, France, Canada, and Australia.

Bitcoin tweets: a global ranking

The survey also revealed the leading countries where bitcoin tweets are the most prevalent. Unsurprisingly, the U.S. dominates Twitter conversations regarding bitcoin, with 38.9 percent of the global tweets on the cryptocurrency hailing from the world’s biggest economy.

In second place is the United Kingdom, which boasts of 10.5 percent of the total bitcoin-related tweets. Other countries with a high number of bitcoin tweets include Canada, Turkey, India, and Australia.

One thing that can be gleaned from the survey is that Twitter activity is not correlated to market activity. Except for the U.S., three of the top-five positions in the rankings of the most-traded national currencies are taken by countries that don’t make it in The TIE list of the highest bitcoin tweet activity. The U.S. holds the leading position in terms of having its national currency as the most traded for bitcoin.

More tweeting about bitcoin equals less trading?

According to Coinhills, the Japanese yen is the second most traded national currency followed by the Korean won. The euro is in the fourth position. Yet these countries don’t appear among the leading 10 on Crypto Twitter in The TIE survey.

Globally, 59.8 percent of the tweets were positive, according to the survey. Sentiment in the U.S. was even more positive than the global average at 61.5 percent. Interestingly, its neighbor to the south, Mexico, featured among the five countries where sentiment was the most negative.

The country where bitcoin tweets were deemed most negative was Venezuela, with 62 percent leaning negative. This is interesting given the hyperinflation in the South American country has seen bitcoin volumes traded in Venezuela on LocalBitcoins on an uptrend since the economic and political crisis escalated last year.

Bitcoin

Other countries where the sentiment in the bitcoin tweets leans negative includes Ireland, Estonia, Brazil, and Venezuela.

Libra – not enough likes

With regard to the sentiment on Libra, it appears the regulatory pushback and backlash from the crypto community have seen the majority of tweets on Facebook’s coin turn negative. This is a departure from the early days when the digital currency had just been announced:

“While conversations on Libra originally tended to be more positive, today 54.8% of Libra coin tweets were negative.”

This is unlikely to be a deterrence to Facebook though, as the social media giant seems immune to all kinds of criticism and bad press.

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