Weekly volume data from the world’s most popular P2P digital currency trading venue, LocalBitcoins, for the week of 2016-10-15, shows the rising popularity of digital money across the globe.
Bitcoin turnover on LocalBitcoins in the European Union set an all-time high last week, clocking in at €831,846. This figure is slightly higher than the previous record (€819,452) set in December of 2013, when the digital currency was trading between $850 and $900.
Europe’s new record is notable, but even more noteworthy is last week’s stellar LocalBitcoins turnover figure in Turkey. While the popularity of digital currencies has been on the rise in most developed and developing countries for the past two years - judging from volume trends on LocalBitcoins - Turks have mostly remained on the sidelines of the virtual currency movement.
For most of 2013, 2014 and 2015 weekly volumes on LocalBitcoins in the country were minuscule to nonexistent. However, the beginning of 2016 marked a steady increase in interest and the first big spike in LocalBitcoins turnover in Turkey occurred during the first week of September, which showed 121,001 Turkish lira worth of trades.
But last week’s surge, which came in at 237,457 TRY, may be one of the first signs that Turks are starting to awaken to Bitcoin’s value proposition. Turkey’s unstable political and economic situation may also be a factor in driving increasing Bitcoin adoption among fearful Turks.
The country’s sagging tourism industry; multiple terrorist bombings; the failed coup against President Erdogan in July; the raging Syrian war on Turkey’s border; are all reflected in the precipitous slide of the Turkish lira against the dollar and the euro. The USD/TRY exchange rate hit a high of 3.11 last Thursday, an all-time low for the Turkish lira, which was trading at 2.3 at the beginning of 2015!
New weekly records were also recorded last week in Colombia (220,168,106 Colombian pesos) and Venezuela (2,940,009 Venezuelan bolivars). Norway and Canada had their second best weekly volumes on LocalBitcoins last week, according to charts on Coin.dance.
