Colas sees the inclination to use credit to get in on the moves of a volatile asset as “a cautious note” about where sentiment is running.
“For those readers who think about transmission mechanisms between financial assets and the real economy, look no further. This is it,” he said in his daily note for clients.
Other search trends show that bitcoin holds a solid lead in Google quests for digital currencies, even though it has a growing list of competitors. In all, 15 cryptocurrencies now have market valuations above $1 billion, according to CoinMarketCap. At $162.4 billion, bitcoin is more valuable than the next 70 or so competitors combined.
Colas said bitcoin “still holds a strong lead in terms of global attention in crypto-land.”
Bitcoin also has come in from the shadows in terms of the attention it’s getting on Wall Street. Investing heavyweight Michael Novogratz, head of Galaxy Investment Partners, thinks bitcoin will hit $10,000 before the end of the year, and Tom Lee at Fundstrat has a mid-2018 price target of $11,500, nearly double what it was in mid-August.
But Mitchell Goldberg, head of ClientFirst Strategy, told clients he’s skeptical and sees the bitcoin craze as analogous to the dot-com bubble and a sign that “we’ve entered the final and stupidest part of the bull market.”
WATCH: Wall Street gets worked up about bitcoin.
