The increasing value of Bitcoin [BTC] has given a nudge to many traders snoozing during the low volatility period. The coin’s current trading value of over $15K has enabled significant profits for BTC investors. As the cryptocurrency market retraced the 2017/18 journey, the P2P volumes appeared 66% lower than the peak noted during the previous bull run.
LocalBitcoins dominated the market until September 2019 after which it noted a sharp fall as it transitioned to KYC compliance. According to Arcane, Paxful took significant shares immediately following the KYC implementation, but that could not stop the trading volume in Asia from taking a hit.
However, with the crypto market showing strong bullish trends in the past couple of months, the volume in the region has returned, with Paxful taking the lead as the largest P2P trading platform. While the leading countries for P2P trading is currently a tie between India and China.
Even though China remained the largest contributor to the Asian P2P volume, it’s about to be surpassed by India. India witnessed tremendous growth in P2P trades in 2020. China’s ban on buying Bitcoin using the Chinese Yuan during the previous bull run pushed many to P2P but as the value of BTC collapsed, the volume retracted to $5 million weekly. However, this wasn’t the case in India.
India remains one of the largest remittance recipient countries according to the World Bank. Data suggests that Indians sent $83 billion worth of remittance in 2019, which made up 2.9% of the country’s total GDP. With the COVID-19 outbreak, the remittances have reduced, but it appears a chunk of the population has shifted focus to Bitcoin to bridge the gap.
This adoption was possible since the banking restrictions were lifted by the Supreme Court. This decision provided an 87% boost to the weekly P2P volume in India. The country has also seen prominent exchanges like Binance supporting P2P with more convenient payment methods like Paytm. Although the regulatory hurdles in India have not yet been cleared, users have been actively supporting crypto and the country is poised to surpass China in terms of volume.
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