Analysts and creators attribute the decline to long-term audience fatigue driven by volatility, scams, and repeated pump-and-dump cycles. This idea reinforces the theory that institutions—not retail—are now leading the market. At the same time, X is pushing deeper into financial content with plans to launch “Smart Cashtags,” a feature that will surface real-time crypto and stock data and potentially pave the way for in-app trading. YouTube Crypto Views Sink Viewership of cryptocurrency-related content on YouTube fell to its lowest point since January of 2021. The downturn was pointed out on Sunday by Benjamin Cowen, founder of ITC Crypto, who shared data showing a steep decline in the 30-day moving average of views across a wide range of crypto-focused YouTube channels. Cowen suggested that the trend is part of a structural shift rather than a platform-specific issue, as engagement dropped across multiple social networks. Other creators agreed with this, and pointed to a sustained erosion in audience interest that dates back several years. Crypto YouTuber Tom Crown said the collapse in engagement has been visible across all platforms since October. Bitcoin investor Polaris XBT described current levels of social activity as comparable to bear market conditions. Several people argued that, despite periodic price rallies, social interest never returned to the highs seen during the 2021 bull market, leaving the sector in what amounts to a prolonged engagement downturn. The decline reinforced the idea that institutional players, rather than retail investors, have been driving market activity during the current cycle. Many content creators believe retail participants have grown fatigued after years of volatility, scams, and highly speculative pump-and-dump schemes. YouTube creator Jesus Martinez said that although his channel grew steadily from early 2022, none of his videos came close to the traction that was achieved during the 2021 peak. TikTok creator Cloud9 Markets also attributed the pullback to repeated losses in what they described as “ponzi” altcoin schemes, saying retail investors are simply tired of being “rekt.” X post from Cloud9 Markets Some argue the disengagement is thanks to a rotation in investor focus. Marc Shawn Brown , head of social media at Cointelegraph, suggested many retail participants have shifted attention toward macro assets like precious metals. He pointed out that 2025 delivered weak performance for Bitcoin, while assets including gold, silver, and palladium outperformed. Despite the slump in content consumption, not all signals are negative. On-chain analytics firm Santiment said social sentiment around Bitcoin started to stabilize and gradually improve, with the $90,000 level seen as a key threshold for maintaining retail confidence. Sentiment toward Ethereum, however, is still mostly fragmented, with no clear directional trend emerging. BTC’s price action over the past year (Source: CoinCodex ) X Prepares Smart Cashtags for Crypto Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s social media platform X is developing a new “Smart Cashtags” feature scheduled for release next month. This will expand how users interact with cryptocurrencies and stocks directly within the app. The feature is designed to provide real-time price movements, asset-specific discussions, and contextual information tied to both digital assets and publicly traded companies. In a post that was published Sunday, X head of product Nikita Bier said Smart Cashtags will allow users to access smart contract details linked to crypto tokens, along with a dedicated “mentions” feed aggregating recent conversations and relevant news about each asset. Bier described X as a primary hub for financial information, and argued that market decisions involving hundreds of billions of dollars are influenced by content shared on the platform. He added that X plans to gather user feedback before rolling the feature out publicly in February. Concept screenshots shared alongside the announcement fueled speculation about deeper financial integration. One image teased potential in-app “Buy” and “Sell” buttons, suggesting that trading functionality could eventually be embedded directly into X. While no technical details have been confirmed, the platform already secured money transmitter licenses in at least 25 US states, indicating preparatory steps toward payments and possibly crypto-enabled transactions. The Smart Cashtags initiative follows X’s earlier attempt at a Cashtags feature that launched in December of 2022, which displayed price charts for assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum, as well as major stocks and ETFs. Those charts were sourced from TradingView, and included links directing users to Robinhood, but the feature was later removed without explanation. The announcement was also made amid criticism from the crypto community, which accused X of suppressing legitimate crypto content while allowing spam to flourish. Bier dismissed the claims as unfounded in a now-deleted post, while Elon Musk said X plans to make its recommendation algorithm open source in the coming week.
