Bitcoin’s highest “real” volume since December

coincides with war

During Russia’s invasion in Ukraine, the “real” daily Bitcoin ( BTC ) volume rose to levels not seen in three months.

The latest weekly update by blockchain analytics firm Arcane Research shows that real daily BTC trading volume soared past $10 billion on Thursday (Feb. 24), the first day of the invasion. This is the highest daily volume since Dec. 4.

According to the firm, “new crypto narratives” have emerged as a result of the ongoing crisis. These include crypto-fundraising in Ukraine and increasing demand in relation to Russia’s strict capital controls.

The strong selling pressure by investors who wanted to remove risk from the market on Thursday could also have contributed to the rise in daily BTC volume. On Thursday, the price fell 10%.

Real trading volume refers to data that is sourced from reliable exchanges and are free of any wash trading activity. Arcane Research gathered its data from Bitwise 10 exchanges. These include Coinbase and Kraken as well as Binance, LMAX, Binance, Kraken, Poloniex and FTX.


Real daily BTC trading volume: Arcane Research

CoinGecko, which pulls data from over 500 exchanges, had BTC trading volume at the $25-billion mark on Thursday. Messari’s real BTC volume chart includes data from a variety of other exchanges. It shows a similar picture as Arcane’s. Last Thursday, Messari recorded a spike of $11.6 billion in volume.

According to data by Messari, the daily real BTC volume dropped to $7.5 billion on Thursday.

Arcane Research highlighted that BTC’s price increased 14.5% in 24 hours. The surge was attributed to Russian crypto adoption (although global volumes are small) and increased speculation about crypto’s potential uses in the face of the Russian invasion.

“Investors speculate that crypto will be more important apolitical or trustless money during a time of increasing geopolitical uncertainty and conflict.” The 15% rise in Bitcoin prices over the last seven days may be due to this speculation.

Similar: Uniswap creates interface to convert altcoins into ETH donations in Ukraine

Russian and Ukrainian Cryptocurrencies

There have been positive effects on the use of cryptocurrency due to financial services and markets being severely disrupted in Russia and Ukraine.

According to the report, data from the last month showed a significant increase in crypto purchases by Ukrainian citizens.

The total amount of daily Tether ( USDT), stablecoins purchased on Binance using the Ukrainian hryvnia, jumped from $2.5 million to $8.5 million as soon as the Russian invasion was complete. The BTC/UAH chart had a similar trend, with a rise of around $1 million to 3 million in that time period.


Daily UAH crypto purchases. Source: Arcane Research

Similar events occurred in Russia, where ruble-based USDT purchases climbed from $15 million on February 21 to as high at $34.94million on February 28. Daily Bitcoin purchases soared from $5 million to $15 million on Friday, before dropping back to the $12-million mark.

Jon
Opinion writer on 7trade7