At a Glance
- Crypto YouTube channels hit their lowest 30-day view average since January 2021
- Creators say retail investors are “tired of getting rekt” and fleeing to gold
- Bitcoin hovers around $92,000 while public attention keeps fading
- Why it matters: The retail exodus is reshaping both content creation and market dynamics
Crypto media is in its worst engagement slump in over four years. New data shows that across major crypto YouTube channels, 30-day average views have fallen to levels last seen in January 2021, marking a multi-year low that creators blame on scam fatigue and pivoting investor interests.
View Counts Slide Across Platforms
Analyst Benjamin Cowen’s latest dataset tracks dozens of top crypto YouTube channels. The 30-day moving average has now dropped below every reading since early 2021, according to figures reviewed by News Of Losangeles.
The decline is broad:
- Not tied to one platform’s algorithm shift
- Extends beyond YouTube to TikTok and Twitter
- Continues a slide that began after 2021 peaks
YouTuber Tom Crown told News Of Losangeles the slowdown has been visible since October 2025. He compares current sentiment to prior bear markets when casual viewers vanished and only die-hards remained.
Jesus Martinez, another channel owner, grew steadily from early 2022 onward. Yet even his best-performing uploads never matched the view counts he recorded during 2021’s bull run.
Retail Fatigue and “Ponzi” Altcoins
TikTok creator Cloud9 Markets attributes part of the drop to repeated scams. Pump-and-dump schemes involving what he labels “ponzi” altcoins have burned retail investors. The result: viewers are “tired of getting rekt,” he said.
Market commentator MissCrypto calls the current Bitcoin price action a “Ghost Town Rally.” The leading crypto is holding around $92,000, but public attention keeps sinking. She notes the gap shows institutions, not retail, are driving bids.
Flight to Safe Havens
The retail exodus is visible beyond social metrics. Petr Kozyakov, Co-Founder and CEO at payments firm Mercuryo, says everyday investors are rotating toward precious metals.
In a statement to News Of Losangeles, Kozyakov explained:
> “Bitcoin has surrendered early gains after breaching the $92,000 mark in Asia trading as the biggest cryptocurrency mirrors leading US tech stocks in a risk-off mode retreat. Markets appear to be weighing growing tensions between US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and President Donald Trump. Against this backdrop, and amid escalating geopolitical risks, traders are retreating to safe haven assets such as gold and silver. Meanwhile, in the digital token space, the narrative of increasing inflows into privacy coins, which so defined the final months of 2025, is continuing to play out with Monero and Zcash recording gains of 16 per cent and 4 per cent, respectively.”
Key Takeaways
- Crypto content consumption is at a four-year low
- Retail investors are departing for traditional safe havens
- Institutions now dominate crypto price action
- Privacy coins are bucking the trend with recent inflows
