The lockdown imposed due to the pandemic serves as a catalyst for increased Bitcoin Trading in Russia. Crypto trading increased by a lot in last few months.

Bitcoin trading in Russia has surged by a lot amid the pandemic. According to IBTimes report, several Russian cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance Russia, Garantex, and EXMO told Russian news site RBC-Crypto there was a significant increase in user registrations and activity from March to May 2020. EXMO, for example, reported a rise of 15-20% activity on the exchange. Apart from higher user registrations with crypto exchanges, there is also an increase in Bitcoin Futures trading activity. Bitcoin Futures enables traders to speculate on the future Bitcoin price without owning the BTC itself. 

Crypto exchanges report higher figures in April and May. 

Binance Russia said the figures in April and May 2020 they reported are twice the numbers they received in March and five times the numbers they registered in January. Garantex Exchange Founder Sergey Mendelev explained that the increased trading activity is not associated with people who withdrew money from deposits or those who received “payments from the budget.” Amid the pandemic, the country had announced financial support to its citizens, and banks have been accommodating loans to those affected by the COVID 19 pandemic.

Need for digital payments increases amid the global pandemic.

People around the world are now more relying on the cashless mode of payments to limit the physical contact among themselves and are relying more on the digital mode of payments. People are avoiding cash transactions to reduce the chances of getting infected from the highly contagious COVID 19. Several central banks around the world are also studying and researching about Central Bank Digital Currencies. The People’s Bank of China is 預期 to issue its national digital yuan dubbed as DC/EP sometime this year. 

Russian lawmakers are seeking to criminalize the use of cryptocurrencies in the country. As 報導 earlier, the Ministry of Economic Development in Russia has moved several bills in the State Duma, including an updated draft for digital financial assets.