Rising to over $41,000 on Monday, bitcoin’s market value surpassed the Russian ruble.
The market value of bitcoin (BTC) surged to nearly $780 billion on Monday in the middle of a price rise to $41,391, up 5.7% in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap. The market value of BTC exceeds the money supply of the Russian ruble, which, according to the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, was 65.3 trillion rubles on February 1 – almost $629 billion at the time of publication.
Russian ruble banknotes. Source: Pexels
Volatility is likely to emerge as the Russian ruble inflates in the midst of sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies in response to the country’s invasion of Ukraine. Reuters reported that the central bank raised its key interest rate from 9.5% to 20% on Monday, and the European Commission announced plans to withdraw Russian banks from the SWIFT payment system.
On the other hand, it seems that many citizens in both Russia and Ukraine have been putting pressure on the stock market, perhaps out of concern for the stability of their country’s fiat currency and the use of cryptocurrencies as a way to collect donations for pro-Ukrainian causes. Cointelegraph reported on Feb. 24 — the same day that Russian forces launched their offensive — that total trading volume on the Ukrainian crypto exchange Kuna was nearly $4.4 million across all tokens over a 24-hour period.
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The latest volatility comes more than a year after the price of BTC surged to an all-time high of $48,200 following the news that Tesla bought a total of $1.5 billion in cryptocurrencies. The market value of bitcoin rose to $871 billion and surpassed the Russian ruble, which was then around $791 billion.
