The Chinese government may have stifled crypto companies, but that has in no way stopped the people of China from investing in Bitcoin (BTC).

Alex Kruger, an economist and cryptocurrency trader, did some research on the BTC market and concluded that the theory that China may have caused some of the surge in BTC price in May when it saw a growth of about 60%, might be true.

This month hasn't shown any significant gain as Bitcoin price has dropped with over 7% in the last 24 hrs.

In a thread of tweets, Alex Kruger explained what he discovered ongoing through Baidu (China's Google) to seek answers.

There's been a lot of talk about how China has been the driver behind Bitcoin's move up since the first week of May. So I decided to look into bitcoin Baidu trends (China's Google). China's bitcoin popularity has definitively been on the rise. 👇 pic.twitter.com/kQ38WJfGjp

— Alex Krüger (@krugermacro) June 3, 2019

Fear of Yuan Crumbling

The fact that during Bitcoin’s bull run last month coincided with BTC topic trends on Baidu, shows that the people of China amidst fears of their local currency falling due to US/China trade war have turned to BTC or USD to hedge their assets.

Dovey Wan of Primitive Ventures noticed this trend earlier in a tweet:

Maybe just a coincidence but you tell me

Bitcoin is winning the trade war while China and US is a lose-lose pic.twitter.com/8FmVcaHjjh

— Dovey 以德服人 Wan 🗝 🦖 (@DoveyWan) May 13, 2019

Baidu BTC Trend Rise Parallel To BTC Price Rise

In support of this Baidu/BTC theory, Alex Kruger pointed out that the increase in Bitcoin searches on Baidu ran parallel to the performance of the crypto asset even in April. In May, this trend became even more glaring as this Baidu/BTC searches increased as the price of Bitcoin (BTC) rose from $6,000 up until it hit its present 2019 peak at $8,350.

Kruger said:

“Interest in bitcoin spiked either after price breakouts or during breakouts.”

He added that Baidu and Google had similar Bitcoin trends, stating:

“Both interest in bitcoin in China (as measured by Baidu Trends) and in the World (as measured by Google Trends) increased similarly and on the same dates (note: dates adjusted by time zone).”

“Bearish Divergence”

He however noticed a “bearish divergence” that happened around mid-may. He tweeted

In both China and the World interest dropped drastically since May/14, while price kept moving higher — a bearish divergence. As of Sunday Jun/2, the Baidu Trends level was back to May/9 levels, when bitcoin was trading at $6,000. pic.twitter.com/AzujbnkWRw

— Alex Krüger (@krugermacro) June 3, 2019

However, Bitcoin searches on Baidu are looking good again as they were when BTC was priced at $6,000, but “buy Bitcoin” trends on Google have dropped since 31st of May.

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