Russian investors continue betting on cryptocurrencies

By Moris Beracha.- 

2018 was a negative period for some of the world’s most important cryptocurrencies. The value of Bitcoin, Ethereum, LiteCoin, Ripple among many others, dropped over the previous year and a large number of investors lost millions of dollars.

However, countries such as Russia still maintain their hopes in digital assets and despite the price crash, the interest in cryptocurrencies remains.

According to financial consultant Olga Prokhorova, the new generations of entrepreneurs are looking to make some kind of investment with tokens, because they trust that this will be the future.

In an interview with the news channel of Federal Press, the also representative of the “International Financial Center”, cited data from a study published by the University of Cambridge suggesting that the number of users with identity to perform some type of transaction in the cryptocurrency ecosystem has grown to more than 35 million worldwide.

The study also shows the increase in transaction volumes in P2P exchanges, such as the local currencies of countries that have experienced a currency crisis. Russia, which has gone through a financial crisis in the past, was included in this group of nations led by Venezuela, which is currently overwhelmed by the worst economic crisis in its history.

It should be noted that according to some specialized portals such as Coin Dance, the weekly volumes of Localbitcoins in Russian rubles have followed an upward trend since the spring of 2018, from the year’s low of around 740 million rubles in mid-March (approximately $ 10.6 million) to well over 1.2 billion rubles (almost $ 18 million) in the last full week of December.

It is also important to mention that some cryptocurrency global trading platforms are opening offices in Russia, such as “Huobi”, which launched a Russian-language website.

Finally, it is still less possible the issuance of a local currency by the Russian government, as Venezuela did with the “Petro”, due to the statements released by different political personalities including Vladimir Putin himself, who has ruled out, for the moments, this kind of move in the Russian economy.

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