eToro: Crypto is still "retail dominated," Zcash has the highest "sentiment" score, and how FTX gained from Blockfolio acquisition

A new report jointly-published by eToro and The TIE explored the cryptocurrency landscape for Q3 2020, finding out long-term sentiment metrics for popular cryptocurrencies and how mergers and acquisitions proved to be the best indicator for future price rises.

The TIE, the report's data source, is a provider of alternative data for digital assets such as a proprietary feed that uses Twitter data to determine a coin's public sentiment at any time.

Joshua Frank, CEO of The TIE, said Q3 was proof of how crypto still a retail dominated industry, as the popularity DeFi, yield farming, NFT's boomed despite the lack of security audits.

Zcash shows the best "Long-term" sentiment.

The "Long-Term Sentiment Score" is a measure of how positive or negative conversations on Twitter have been about a particular cryptoasset over the last 50 days vs. the previous 200 days.

A score above 50 implies that conversations have been more positive during the past 50 days vs. the previous 200.

Frank said that following Gemini's support of shielded Zcash transactions, ZEC finished the quarter with the "Most positive long-term sentiment score" of any crypto on eToro.

An example of this, Frank pointed out, was FTX's acquisition of Blockfolio and the subsequent surge of users into the FTX ecosystem.

"In just over a week following the acquisition, the price of FTX surged by 33%," he said in the report.

Frank noted in the regard, "We believe that the negative price movement is likely due to a"buy the rumor and sell the news" mentality.