A new study has revealed a significant rise in Bitcoin (BTC) trading across Russia since March amidst the COVID-19 lockdown.
On June 4, it has been reported by RBC that representatives from the Russian offices of exchanges like Binance, Garantex, and EXMO, highlighted the growth in the number of users in Russia, as this number is relative to the increase in trading volumes from March until June.
However, Gleb Kostarev, the head of the representative office of Binance in Russia, explained that the number of registrations on their platform during April 2020 was two times higher than in December of 2019.
He added:
“It is worth noting separately that the popularity of futures trading is growing among Russians. In April and May, trading volumes of these instruments are twice as high as in March and five times in January.”
Sergey Mendelev, the founder of Garantex, clarified that the increase in activity on cryptocurrency exchanges “is not associated with those people who withdraw money from deposits or receive payments from the budget.”
Likewise, Fedor Anaschenkov, the analyst of United Traders, believes that self-isolation from the COVID-19 pandemic was one of the drivers that led to increased trading volumes.
Data provided by three crypto exchanges revealed a sharp increase in Bitcoin trading volume in Russia https://t.co/OhhCxZBOE8 — Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) June 4, 2020
As per the report, the EXMO crypto exchange gave some figures to explain the sharp increase in BTC trading volumes, where their CEO, Sergey Zhdanov, stated that their site activity grew by about 15-20% by registering a 12% increase in Russian users. These figures were compared with the same period from March to May 2019.
Thus, Russia is strengthening its leadership on LocalBitcoins, the major peer-to-peer exchange, in the share of Bitcoin trading volumes, despite local cryptocurrency uncertainty.
Source: Cointelegraph | Image: MIT Technology Review