Despite market turbulence, Bitcoin surged to a two-week peak Tuesday, due to Russian and Ukrainian buyers who may be looking for a safe haven from the demise of their native crypto currencies. At $44,654 as of this writing, bitcoin was up 16.6% on CoinMarketCap, while ethereum, the indigenous currency of Ethereum blockchain, rose 12.8% to $2,972.
As of mid-February, the two most valuable cryptocurrencies in terms of market capitalization were trading at their highest levels since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine crisis, while altcoins generally rebounded after a crash, in particular smart-contract networks like Terra, Cardano, and Avalanche. At the time of writing, Terra’s token luna had risen by 21% to $91.19, while cardano had gained 9.20% and avalanche had risen by roughly 18.44% in the previous day.
Following Russia’s invasion on Ukraine, the ruble has plummeted to historic lows and the country’s most famous firms have plummeted in value as a result. For the first time since May, the volume of trade in Russian rouble-denominated bitcoin has hit its greatest level since the beginning of the year, according to a report from Kaiko. Because of its apparent independence from the existing financial system, some Russian billionaires and others who are concerned about the effect of financial sanctions are turning to Bitcoin, according to DailyFX.
Russian banks have been effectively cut off from the global financial markets as a result of the sanctions imposed on them by the United States and its allies, according to strategist Thomas Westwater. “This raises serious doubts about Russia’s financial ability to weather the economic penalties,” he said. As a result of the war in Ukraine and the sanctions placed on Russia, Bea O’Carroll, managing director of Radkl, claimed that bitcoin has been used to move assets, including millions of dollars in cryptocurrency contributions.
“Russia may be able to shift its value using this method. There was a ‘this is how people are going to regard the Ukrainians’, on the other hand” stated she, As bitcoin contributions increased and Ukraine’s official Twitter account pleaded for help via bitcoin, ethereum, and tether, it was evident that bitcoin is a viable way of moving wealth into Ukraine.
Ukraine’s military got $3 million from a single gift from cryptocurrency exchange Binance, which has pledged to provide $10 million to the relief fund. “Overall, the rise of crypto as an alternate way of payment has been beneficial. This is due to the fact that crypto has been used to give millions of dollars to Ukraine. The country’s Bitcoin and ERC-20 (ether) addresses have received over $19 million in crypto contributions” GlobalBlock’s Marcus Sotiriou claimed
According to him, the fact that the government has raised money using cryptocurrency at such a large scale is “a historical moment” for the crypto business.
