Loading...An analyst Larry Cermak has researched crypto turnover volume and found that “26,5% of all LocalBitcoins volumes are currently coming from Russia. Russia’s volumes are two times as high as the trailing Venezuela, which is at 12,2%.” As the analyst claims that “It’s becoming clear that Russia is starting to dominate LocalBitcoins volumes. This is because regulated on-ramps from Russian Ruble are not possible yet. At least until Russia approves new legislation.”
USA accounts for 11,8% of total LocalBitcoins world volumes showing the populace of established cryptocurrencies in this country such as Coinbase. Meanwhile LocalBitcoins is a comfort peer-to-peer trading platform allowing purchasing and selling cryptocurrencies without financial intermediaries.
This platform is useful in countries where there are restraints on crypto trading exists. So China tops fourth position with 9,7% and Nigeria holds sixth place with 7,6% figure. There is also important that 10,3% of LocalBitcoins trading derives from undisclosed sources. What’s interesting that LocalBitcoins data can be used as a proxy for measuring demand for Bitcoin in a specific country. Online exchanges, which is where the large majority is traded, don’t publish country specific data. For example, Coin Dance aggregates LocalBitcoins data but still misses important features such as volumes in USD, demographic breakdown and weighting by population. The time trends show that there is permanent movement up for the most countries tracked. USA shows constant growth from the 2013 year with some mitigation in demand in 2018 year. Meanwhile graphs of share of total volume of 12 most active countries on LocalBitcoins. The trend seems to be that the developed countries are losing its footing while the importance of developing countries in the Bitcoin ecosystem is quickly growing.
LocalBitcoins volumes weighted by population shows as Cermak argues that “Venezuela is leading the way trailed by Russia while countries like UK, Australia and USA are falling behind. So Bitcoin is really significant for people going through hyperinflation? Seems like it.” In 2013, about 90% of all volume was coming from US, UK and Australia. Now, they share mere 19% of all volumes.
