"Bitcoin is dead" search volume hits a record high: Is this a sign of surrender or the true bottom?

Google Trends data shows that searches for “Bitcoin is dead” surged in February 2026, reaching a peak score of 100, matching the all-time high set during the FTX collapse in 2022.
This spike in search volume coincides with a sharp decline in Bitcoin’s price, which fell nearly 50% from a high of approximately $126,000 in 2025 to a recent low of around $63,000.
Since October 2025, the cryptocurrency market has lost over $2 trillion in market capitalization, triggering widespread panic among retail investors.
Some analysts interpret this panic as potential “capitulation,” a highly pessimistic sentiment often marking the cyclical bottom before a market rebound. The search volume for “Bitcoin to zero” also hit record levels, reflecting retail despair amid institutional rebalancing and miner sell-offs.
Historically, Bitcoin’s “obituaries” are nothing new. According to 99Bitcoins, since 2010, the asset has been declared “dead” 477 times. Peaks in these “death” narratives typically coincide with major corrections of 70% to 80%, but each time, a strong recovery followed.
This suggests that the current surge in search volume may indicate exhausted selling pressure, especially in the absence of major black swan events. There are still positive undercurrents in the market; according to DefiLlama, Binance experienced over $3 billion in net inflows in the past week, demonstrating capital resilience.
Recently, Bitcoin rebounded modestly from $63,000 to over $67,000. Analysts emphasize that short-term selling has exhausted, but warn that the bear market could persist longer.
Broader trends indicate that the crypto market is evolving rather than heading toward extinction. Despite struggles among meme coins and altcoins, capital is flowing into real-world applications like prediction markets. Polymarket’s trading volume reached $21.5 billion in 2025 and hit $12 billion in January 2026; after raising $2 billion in funding, its valuation stands at $11.6 billion.
Ethereum’s 2026 roadmap highlights scalability and integration with artificial intelligence (AI), such as the ERC-8004 standard for AI agents, positioning it for mature application scenarios.