Google Trends data reveals that no one cares about the metaverse or NFTs in 2022

Search interest for keywords “metaverse” and “NFT” has continued to drop since the start of the year.

While the worldwide search interest for the keywords “metaverse” and “NFT” boomed in the last quarter of 2021, Google Trends data shows that the hype may have started to fizzled in February 2022.

Google Trends shows that in the last 12 months, searches for “metaverse” gained traction from October to December 2021. However, since the beginning of 2022, the search interest has continued to drop, hitting its lowest point in March.

Apart from the keyword “metaverse,” the data shows that the worldwide search for “NFT” has also started its decline this year. However, the drop for NFT is more noticeable, as it reached record highs in 2021 then fell steeply in the first quarter of 2022.

*Global search interest for the “metaverse” and “NFT” keywords. Source: Google Trends*

In the last 12 months, users from Turkey have been at the top of the interest-by-region category in Google Trends for the keyword “metaverse.” The country surpassed China and Singapore, which rank No. 2 and 3, respectively. Cyprus and Lebanon follow closely at fourth and fifth, respe.

Meanwhile, Singapore has held the top spot in the interest-by-region list for the last 12 months for the keyword “NFT.” The country is followed by Hong Kong, China, Canada and the Philippines.

Back in December, the global search interest for “NFT” surpassed “crypto” for the first time. Apart from this, monthly trading volume in the NFT marketplace OpenSea also hit a new all-time high in January. The increase in search volume for the keyword and trading volume shows that NFTs have finally caught mainstream attention.

The growth of nonfungible tokens (NFT) in 2021 has been attributed to some of the biggest NFT drops of the past year and the celebrities who started to offer their own collections. From influential rappers such as Snoop Dogg to marketing experts such as Gary Vaynerchuk, many figures brought interest to NFTs last year.