Bloomberg: Retail investors are starting to return to crypto

Last year's fourth-quarter reports from Coinbase and Robinhood showed that retail investors are beginning to cautiously return to the cryptocurrency space, although they have not yet plunged in like they did during the last bull market three years ago. Arca trader Kyle Doane said: "There are signs that retail investors are starting to return to the market, but it has not yet reached the level of the last bull market. Even stocks like COIN and crypto mining companies show more volatility than many tokens." Retail traders are crucial to cryptocurrencies. They accounted for the lion's share of Coinbase's revenue during the last bull market and were the primary revenue driver for most other cryptocurrency exchanges. Google Trends shows web searches for the term "Bitcoin" spiked in the first half of January when the ETF debuted, but then plummeted to bear market levels, suggesting retail investors haven't fully jumped in yet. Downloads of top cryptocurrency trading apps heavily used by retail traders are also well below bull market levels. Binance’s app downloads reached 10 million in the fourth quarter of last year, up from 9 million in the third quarter and up from 8.1 million in the last three months of 2022, according to market intelligence firm Sensor Tower; In the second quarter of 2021, Binance downloads reached 25.8 million times. Additionally, Coinbase app downloads increased 13% sequentially in the fourth quarter of last year, but were still down year-over-year: its 1.7 million app downloads in the fourth quarter were just a fraction of the company’s peak of 10.8 million downloads in the second quarter of 2021. Small portion. (Bloomberg)