Bitcoin's Soaring Price Fails to Spark New Wave of Investors' Interest Despite Reaching a New All-Time High

Bitcoin has soared 50% since the beginning of April, exceeding the $100,000 mark per unit, setting a new all-time high.

Bitcoin has risen rapidly since the beginning of this year.

As of the 26th, Bitcoin was trading at the $110,000 level, setting a new all-time high.

However, despite Bitcoin's rise, the domestic virtual asset market is sluggish, and transaction volume has been slowly decreasing.

According to CoinGecko, the average daily transaction volume of the country's top five virtual asset exchanges (Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Cobbit, and Gopax) this month is $3.57886 billion (about 4.8876 trillion won).

This is a 70% drop from the average of $12.199 billion a day in December.

It is analyzed that interest in Bitcoin has decreased rapidly compared to the beginning of last year, and investors' participation is still low.

According to Google Trends, which shows interest based on Google search figures, Koreans' interest in Bitcoin reached 22 levels this week (25th-31st). This figure is a fifth of the level at the time when the first to seventh days of December, when interest was highest, was set at 100.

A similar trend is occurring not only in domestic but also in global markets. According to Google Trends, the global interest in Bitcoin this week is 32, which is only one-third of the level when November 10-16 was set at 100.

There are various analyses on this in the market. First of all, it is analyzed that the rise is institution-led, unlike in the past, and the participation of individual investors has not yet begun.

Hunter Horsley, CEO of U.S. asset manager Bitwise, said, "The rise is driven by institutions, advisors, and companies, not individuals," adding, "The low interest of individual investors is because individuals are entering the market through institutional products rather than in-kind purchases, unlike in the past."

Some analysts say that this is because the rise in Bitcoin does not lead to the rise in altcoins, unlike in the past.

Unlike in the past, altcoins have not shown an explosive rise. Bitcoin has risen by up to 50.29% since the 7th of last month, but the market capitalization of the rest of the coins except Bitcoin has risen by only 34.99%.