Bitcoin's 'real' transaction volume hits highest level since early December as war breaks out

Amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, “real” daily Bitcoin (BTC) trading volumes surged to levels not seen in three months.

According to the latest weekly update report from blockchain analysis company Arcane Research, last Thursday (February 24, the first day of the intrusion), BTC’s daily actual transaction volume soared to more than $10 billion, the highest since December 4. Highest daily trading volume ever.

The firm noted that “new crypto narratives” have risen to the forefront amid the ongoing crisis, such as crypto funding in Ukraine and the introduction of “the strictest capital controls in decades” in relation to Western Block and Russia. Increase in demand.

Intense selling pressure from investors looking for safe havens may have also contributed to the surge in bitcoin’s daily trading volume on Feb. 24, when the bitcoin price fell 10 percent.

"Real volume" refers to data from exchanges that are considered reputable and free of wash trading activity. In this example, Arcane Research pulls data from Bitwise 10 exchanges (including names like Coinbase, Kraken, Poloniex, and Binance), LMAX, and FTX.

By comparison, cryptographic data aggregators like Coingecko — which sources data from more than 500 exchanges — traded around $25 billion in bitcoin on Feb. 24. Messari’s chart of actual BTC volumes (including some additional exchanges) paints a similar picture to Arcane, which surged to around $11.6 billion last Thursday.

Since Feb. 24, as of March 1, bitcoin’s actual daily trading volume has fallen to about $7.5 billion, according to Messari data.

Arcane Research also highlighted that the price of BTC recorded its largest one-day gain in more than a year on Feb. 28, with the price increasing by 14.5% in 24 hours. The firm attributes the spike to crypto adoption rates in Russia and Ukraine (although the actual numbers are relatively small globally), as well as increased speculation about crypto use cases during the current Russian invasion:

"Investor speculation that cryptocurrencies will become increasingly important as apolitical and trustless money in an era of escalating geopolitical uncertainty, conflict and capital controls. Such speculation may have contributed to Bitcoin's price increase over the past 7 days 15%."

Cryptocurrencies in Ukraine and Russia

As financial services and markets in Russia and Ukraine have been severely disrupted, the use of cryptocurrencies has had an impact.

The report noted that last month’s data showed a significant increase in cryptocurrency purchases by Ukrainian citizens.

Around the start of the full-scale Russian invasion on February 24, daily purchases of the Tether (USDT) stablecoin via Ukrainian hryvnia (UAH) on Binance increased from around $2.5 million to 8.5 million on February 25 USD or so. And the BTC/UAH chart shows a similar trajectory, surging from around $1 million to $3 million in that time frame.

A similar phenomenon occurred in Russia, where ruble-based USDT purchases climbed from around $15 million on Feb. 21 to $34.94 million on Feb. 28. Bitcoin’s daily purchases also jumped from under $5 million to $15 million on February 25 before falling back to around $12 million.