According to Bloomberg News, amidst heavy fighting and sweeping sanctions, Bitcoin continues to gain traction in Ukraine and Russia’s local currencies and has also pushed at record low the Russian ruble.
Increased trading volume in Bitcoin
Trading volumes in Bitcoin that make use of the Russian ruble have escalated to the highest level since May, and the ones based in Ukraine, the hryvnia, have surged to levels that have not been seen since October as per crypto data firm, Kaiko.
The uncertainty that is looming large due to the Moscow-led Ukraine invasion and the capital has caused the global markets to take refuge in assets that are safe havens. The idea of Bitcoin being the digital gold has waned of late since the correlation between the US stock market and the biggest cryptocurrency has become stronger.
But as exemplified by a boom in Bitcoin that is triggered by the lira crisis of Turkey, it has been seen that few prefer Bitcoin, especially when the times are uncertain and unpredictable.
The overall trading of Bitcoin picked up the pace at the time of price swing that took place last week, but the enhanced activity for BTC/RUB and BTC/UAH trading pairs was remarkably greater than the BTC/USD pair. Volumes in those Bitcoin crypto exchanges that engage in trading the RUB/USD pair witnessed the volumes surge by 121% week-on-week, as per data from CoinShares.
Bloomberg News reports that it is still unclear if the surge in volume implies more buying interest from the two countries. However, the fact that there is a marked divergence from the fiat currencies that include the dollar and euro over the last few days indicates that Bitcoin is perhaps more enticing in those mentioned above two markets.
As there are signs that Russians are shifting their money into crypto, the officials in Ukraine urged the crypto exchanges to block the Russian clients’ addresses.
Binance, which witnessed the most trading volume involving the ruble Bitcoin on its exchange, sent a confirmation that it would block those Russian accounts that sanctions have targeted. However, it would not freeze millions of user accounts in the country unilaterally.
According to a spokesperson of Binance told Bloomberg that the primary purpose of crypto is to offer greater freedom to people from across the globe. To decide to ban access of people to the crypto exchanges unilaterally would “fly in the face” of the reason as to why the crypto exists. The spokesperson also said that it is considering taking actions against those with sanctions levied against the accounts while ensuring that the innocent users are not affected adversely.
