After a volatile couple of days, Bitcoin, the granddaddy of digital assets, is enjoying a small period of consolidation above the $40,000 mark after a swathe of Russians turned to crypto as the sanctions against Russia increased.
Despite a slight pullback in the early hours of Thursday morning, Cryptocurrency prices have been climbing after Russia’s ruble plunged to yet another record low and Russia was hit with fresh new global sanctions.
Ukraine itself has been calling for donations in cryptocurrency to back its war effort. According to the blockchain analysis firm Elliptic, The Ukrainian government and NGOs providing support to the military have raised $35 million. This includes a $5.8 million donation by @Polkadot founder Gavin Wood and a CryptoPunk NFT worth over $200,000.
Now, due to the plunge in the Russian Rouble and the bullish run on Bitcoin (BTC), the market capitalisation of Bitcoin worldwide now exceeds that of the rouble. This means that all of the Bitcoin traded worldwide is worth more than all of the roubles in global circulation.
Bitcoin has a market cap of approximately $835 billion whilst the rouble has a market cap of around $626 billion.
Since the Russia and Ukraine conflict started last week, Bitcoin has climbed nearly 14 per cent and Ethereum has jumped 12 per cent.
On Wednesday, Ukraine’s vice prime minister Mykhailo Fedorov announced that Ukraine was now also accepting donations in “meme-coin” Dogecoin. He tweeted:
“@dogecoin exceeded Russian ruble in value. We start to accept donations in meme coin. Now even meme can support our army and save lives from Russian invaders. $DOGE owners of the world,
@elonmusk @BillyM2k, let’s do it.”
Despite a continuing pull back into the early hours of Friday, the geopolitical events of the last few weeks have shown that there is a definite need for digital assets. Global political turmoil, actual war and the ease in which anyone’s (in this case Russian) access to finances can be switched off, have all demonstrated the importance of alternative, decentralized finance.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies may be down over the last few days and even months, but expect a bounce soon.
