Venezuela and Colombia Responsible for almost A Quarter of Trades on LocalBitcoins

Rising inflation and the COVID-19 pandemic have led the people of Venezuela and Colombia towards cryptocurrencies. According to LocalBitcoins, the two countries are responsible for about 23% of the trades on their platform.

Latin American leads in P2P trades

According to LocalBitcoins, Venezuela is its second-biggest market followed by Colombia. The peer-to-peer (P2P) trading platform is becoming popular in the two countries as a store of value. Venezuela is responsible for 12.3% of the global volume on LocalBitcoins in 2020. The socialist country is facing severe inflation because of which citizens are flocking to Bitcoin. It is second only to Russia which accounts for 17.4% of the total trading volume on the platform.

Its neighbor Colombia is not too far behind. It accounts for 11.3% of the trade of Bitcoins on the platform. It also has the largest number of Bitcoin ATMs in Latin America. The country has 60 crypto ATMs in total, which provides evidence that there is consistent growth in interest for cryptocurrencies.

Leading the world in Bitcoin payments

Amounting to 23% of the total market on LocalBitcoins, the two Latin American countries are beating the trading volumes of Sub-Saharan Africa. This region is booming in volume on Paxful, a rival platform. The reasons behind the growth in Bitcoin use is mostly financial and geopolitical. According to a post from Satoshi en Venezuela, the countries are facing hyperinflation which has “led the exchange volume of Bitcoin to rise considerably in the country. This also influences the volume in its neighboring country, Colombia.”

Other countries in the Latin American market with growing Bitcoin trading volumes are Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. Interest in cryptocurrencies has also risen because of the pandemic. Recently, Bitcoin’s price rose and touched all-time highs again. The rising interest in cryptos by institutional investors is being seen as the major cause behind this rise.