Heightened market volatility has failed to dampen enthusiasm throughout South America, as bitcoin trading volumes in Venezuela, Brazil, Chile, and Colombia continue to soar.
Venezuela Trades Record Bolivars For Bitcoin
Data from monitoring resource Coin Dance, which tracks trading across three decentralized P2P platforms, confirmed the new all-time high record this weekend.
For the last seven days ending July 13, Venezuelan Localbitcoins users traded 49.24 billion sovereign bolivars (VES).
That was more in VES terms than in any week since records began.
In Bitcoin terms, trading did not produce records; the 49 billion VES equated to just 512 BTC, Coin Dance suggests, underscoring the economic fragility still omnipresent in the country.
Nevertheless, neighboring countries saw upticks in trading themselves, despite the impact of US president Donald Trump saying he did not believe in or appreciate Bitcoin’s value.
Chile recorded 194 million pesos’ worth of transactions on Localbitcoins last week, around 50 million off its all-time high.
In Colombia, the figure was 9.1 billion Colombian pesos, just 1.5 billion off its best weekly performance which occurred in the first week of May.
Brazil BTC Trades Hit 1 Billion Reals
Brazil reported different interesting numbers. According to local exchange bitValor, June saw a 23% surge in the number of BTC trades against the Brazilian real in total, with volume passing 1 billion BRL.
“Despite the increase, the monthly closing was 15% below the daily maximum of the BRXBT Index in the month of June,” executives wrote in a summary.
This instability and strong oscillation of the BRXBT index should continue during July as the market tests new levels of Bitcoin’s quotation.
In recent days, BTC/USD has declined sharply, hitting as low as $9912 compared with over $13,000 just six days ago. The most recent data shows $27 billion changing hands on official exchanges worldwide.
Within P2P, Bisq, a decentralized platform tracked by Coin Dance, produced multiple new records of its own for different jurisdictions in recent weeks.
The success coincided with Localbitcoins withdrawing the option to arrange cash meetings for bitcoins, a decision which users met with considerable scorn when it came into effect at the start of June.
At the time, Bitcoinist produced a list of alternatives for those wishing to maintain the same level of privacy offered by cash meet-ups.
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