According to the CoinDance portal, the trading volume of bitcoin paired with the Chinese yuan on the P2P exchange platformLocalBitcoins hit a two-year low.
The value has been steadily declining since the end of 2019 andas of January 25, amounted to 4.5 million yuan ($ 650,000) per week. If we compare this figure with the annual maximum, which is at around 45 million yuan ($ 6.5 million) per week, the drop is already 90%. The historical maximum is even higher: in January 2018, the trading volume amounted to 169 million yuan.
Interestingly, the decline began immediately after the speech of the Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who said that blockchain technology is promising and it is important to develop it.After that, local authorities constantly talked about the population not confusing the technology with cryptocurrencies — in their opinion, speculative instruments — and stepped up measures designed to curb their trade.
The rate of queries related toBitcoin, in Baidu's most popular Chinese search engine. Longhash reports that Baidu’s Bitcoin user interest index has plummeted over the past week and hit a one-month low.
At the same time, The Block analyst Larry Chermak (LarryCermak) notes that in countries such as Egypt, Colombia, Peru, Argentina, Chile and Venezuela, trading volumes on LocalBitcoins last year increased on the contrary compared to 2018. At the same time, volumes in Hong Kong and Iran decreased by 18% and 52%, respectively.
Last week, the CEO of the exchangeBitMEX cryptocurrency derivatives Arthur Hayes noted that he expects a decrease in trading volume and volatility during the Chinese New Year. Previously, LocalBitcoins announced that it is suspending services for residents of several countries due to EU requirements.
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