Bitcoin’s continued strength against major currencies amid global geopolitical and economic uncertainty is prompting an increasing number of nervous investors to seek security in the digital currency.
Last week, bitcoin trading volumes on LocalBitcoins in
Colombia, Venezuela and Turkey, hit a new all-time high.
In Colombia, 409,331,921 Colombian pesos ($143,282 USD) in trades took place for the week ending 2017-02-04. The actual amount of bitcoin - not just the total value traded - that changed hands also hit a new record of 149.
And in neighboring Venezuela, where authorities recently busted a bitcoin mining farm with 11,000 mining devices for using up too much electricity, LocalBitcoins turnover last week exploded to a record 11,232,494 bolivars ($366,898 USD).
Venezuela's volume surge may also have been partly fueled by SurBitcoin's (largest cryptocurrency exchange in the country)
bank account suspension by Venezuelan bank Banesco, which prompted SurBitcoin management to direct all of their clients to use LocalBitcoins for their trading.
While the amount of bitcoin traded did not hit a new all-time high like in Colombia, a second-best record of 359 bitcoin was recorded in Venezuela, according to data by Coin.dance.
Bitcoin seems to be gaining ground rapidly in countries with depreciating national currencies.
Turkey, which saw a surge in LocalBitcoins volumes in the week following Donald Trump’s election as the
Turkish lira began to crash, also experienced a new all-time high record last week: 512,281 Turkish lira ($139,085 USD) worth of bitcoin trades took place for the week ending 2017-02-04.
Just like in Colombia, the actual amount of bitcoin changing hands in Turkey last week came in at 138 (second-best week).
Furthermore, LocalBitcoins weekly volumes in the countries of Saudi Arabia, Philippines, United States, the EU and Canada, also shot up to their second-highest reading last week.
