As the days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine pass, cryptocurrencies begin to gain ground among the inhabitants of both countries. This, according to experts, could be due to illicit movements, as well as a growing devaluation of both the Russian ruble and the Ukrainian hryvnia.
according to signature chain analysisduring February 19 and 24, growth was detected in the volume of operations with cryptocurrencies, made with pairs of rubles and hryvnias. In the case of the Russian currency, the growth was 8.6 times to register a volume, in those days, of up to 124 million dollars; while for the Ukrainian currency, its growth was 8.2 times in that period, to reach a volume of 42 million dollars.
While it is possible that the transaction volume represents illicit actors converting funds into cryptocurrencies, it could also be driven by people in both countries reacting to the recent devaluation of the ruble and hryvnia and trying to preserve their savings. technology analysis blockchain (block chain).
For this analysis, the firm took into account data from the five major global exchanges that offer cryptocurrency operations at par with the ruble and the hryvnia, information that was provided by the company Kaiko Data.
A few days ago, both the United States and the European Union began sanctions against Russia for its warlike actions against Ukraine, among which strong reprisals against Russian banks and its financial system in general stand out because some would be disconnected from the interbank payment network SWIFT.
For Chainalysis, this growth in trading volume with cryptocurrencies occurs in countries where the adoption of this type of instrument is high, according to the firm’s Adoption Index of these instruments, since Ukraine occupies the fourth place worldwide in said list, while Russia it’s on 18.
“Cryptocurrency adoption and literacy are high in both Ukraine and Russia, ranking 4th and 18th, respectively, in Chainalysis’s global cryptocurrency adoption index. Therefore, we might expect citizens to turn to cryptocurrencies in the face of currency devaluation,” the firm said.
For chain analysisit is cause for concern that much of the global cybercriminal activity is based on Russia, so it is important to closely monitor this problem in the context of war.
“The prolific Conti ransomware gang has already expressed its intention to support Russia in its war efforts and carry out cyberattacks on enemy states,” Chainalysis said.
Crypto donations grow
The firm Elliptic, dedicated to the analysis of blockchainhas detected that donations in cryptocurrenciesboth non-governmental organizations and the government of Ukrainehave added the equivalent of 16.7 million dollars in the period of the invasion of Russia to this country.
According to Elliptic data, only this February 27th a donation was detected to the ukrainian government for more than 1 million dollars in bitcoin. “A single donation worth $1 million brought the total of more than $10 million to the government of Ukraine (in 12,799 donations), since it started fundraising (as of February 26).”
According to data from Elliptic, most of the donations in cryptocurrencies have been made through bitcoinfollowed by ether, as well as different stablecoins.
With these data it follows that at least in the last 24 hours, donations in cryptocurrencies to this nation have tripled.
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