Every now and then, I see something trending in the media, and I wonder just how much influence has been exerted. It’s very rare to be able to have data on that sort of thing, as without concrete facts, you can’t really gauge public opinion without extensive polling data. Even then, you’re still subject to quite a bit of bias. But with something like Bitcoin, we have a very easy way to compare media attention with value.

In the last two months, Bitcoin value has been skyrocketing. Since the beginning of March, the value has gone from $33 USD to $90 USD.

Data via bitcoincharts.com.

I was pretty intrigued by why this was the case. There have certainly been a lot of news articles about Bitcoin recently. So I decided to do a quick Google Trends search, and cross reference the results with the value of Bitcoins.

Google Trends data for Bitcoin, August 2010-Present

So, in April-June of 2011, we saw a spike in the search traffic, and articles. We saw another brief spike in the search traffic in January of 2012. Another spike in September of 2012, and recently, a huge trend on the topic. Keep all that in mind.

Now look at the value of Bitcoins from August 2010 to the present.

Data via bitcoincharts.com.

What this should show you is just how easily a small market cap commodity can be driven (or manipulated) by media attention.