The price of Bitcoin rallied up this week to $44,000 following the set of sanctions imposed on Russia by several countries, including the US, Japan, and Australia.
This made many speculate that Russians were trying to evade sanctions using crypto, but that may not be true.
According to data from Chainalysis, the ruble-denominated crypto activity on March 3rd stood at $34.1 million which is below the $70.1 million activity registered on February 24th by 50%. In May 2021, the ruble-denominated crypto activity reached its record of $158 million.
The senior director of communication at Chainalysis, Madeleine Kennedy, declared:
“This is a fraction of the volume that was seen during the all-time highs of Russian crypto trading volume reached May 2021.”
Analyzing data from Citigroup it also looks like the Russians purchased Bitcoin at an average of 210 BTC/day. This means that Russia has a small impact on the crypto market.
Alexander Saunders, Citi analyst, stated:
“Russian volumes have been relatively small so far, suggesting that the price action is more due to investors positioning for an expected uptick in demand from Russia, rather than Russian demand itself. It will take meaningful capital flight to move the needle.”
The head of digital-asset strategy at Fundstrat, Sean Farrell, declared:
“Ongoing geopolitical conflict and macro uncertainty could result in continued volatility. If we see another significant bout of downward pressure on prices, recent precedent gives us some confidence that there will be buyers that step up.”