Bitcoin is one of the most well-known cryptocurrencies worldwide. Recently, as the COVID-19 pandemic raged globally, a new wave of price volatility and interest in Bitcoin was witnessed. Identifying the roles played by different information sources in the emergence and diffusion of content through Internet resources can reveal the influential factors affecting cryptocurrencies’ value. This study aims to reveal the forces behind cryptocurrencies’ monetary value—the market price movements on major exchanges before, during, and post the March 2020, COVID-19 market crash. The daily prices of the two largest cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Ether, were obtained from CoinDesk. By integrating Google Trends data, we found that Google searches increase when the number of tweets on COVID-19 soars, with a one-period lag (one day). Furthermore, search trends have a significant impact on cryptocurrencies’ future returns such that increased (decreased) searches for a negative event indicate lower (higher) future cryptocurrency prices.

比特币是全球最著名的加密货币之一。近期，随着新冠肺炎（COVID-19）疫情在全球肆虐，比特币出现了新一波的价格波动和兴趣。识别不同信息源在互联网资源内容的出现和传播中所扮演的角色，可以揭示影响加密货币价值的影响因素。本研究旨在揭示加密货币货币价值背后的力量，即 2020 年 3 月 COVID-19 市场崩盘之前、期间和之后主要交易所的市场价格变动。两种最大的加密货币比特币和以太币的每日价格是从 CoinDesk 获得的。通过整合 Google 趋势数据，我们发现，当有关 COVID-19 的推文数量激增时，Google 搜索量就会增加，并且存在一个周期（一天）的滞后。此外，搜索趋势对加密货币的未来回报有重大影响，例如负面事件搜索的增加（减少）表明未来加密货币价格较低（较高）。