Washington: Bitcoin has leapt since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, bolstered by people in those countries looking to store and move money in anonymous and decentralised crypto.
Bitcoin trading denominated in the Russian rouble went into overdrive when the invasion began on Thursday, with daily volumes rising 259 per cent from a day earlier to 1.3 billion rouble ($13.1 million), according to data from CryptoCompare. In Ukraine, meanwhile, crypto exchange Kuna saw its daily trading volume more than treble to 150 million hryvnias ($5 million). Bea O'Carroll, MD at Radkl, a digital asset investment firm, said the war and Western sanctions had seen a trend emerge of bitcoin being used to transfer value, Reuters reported.
"Basically, having a currency that is not controlled by the government, that is not affected by the emergency acts ... is really interesting," she added. "Maybe this is how Russia gets its value moved around. Equally, on the other side, there was 'this is how people are going to get value to the Ukrainians'." In the five days since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, bitcoin has risen 13 per cent, while the S&P 500 U.S. stock index that it often mimics is up around 2 per cent and traditional safety play gold is now largely flat after gaining as much as 3.5 per cent on the day of the invasion.