April 16, 2019

Brazil Trades a Record 100,000 Bitcoin in 24 Hours

Brazil, the largest Latin American economy, broke a new record when Brazilian exchanges traded over 100 thousand bitcoin within 24 hours. In parallel, Brazil reported that its economic activity in February fell to the lowest level in the last nine months.

Brazil Trades Over 100,000 bitcoin in 24 Hours

The battle between Brazil and Argentina for the supremacy of the bitcoin market in Latin America reached a new dimension. Cointrader Monitor, a monitoring tool that analyzes bitcoin price movements in Brazil, announced that Brazilian cryptocurrency exchanges traded over 100,000 BTC on April 10, 2019.

Brasil negocia 100 mil Bitcoins e bate recorde da América Latina#BTC #BitCoinhttps://t.co/BpN4ZS09ro

— Cointrader Monitor (@CointraderM) April 15, 2019

This spike in the volume of bitcoins traded coincides with recent increases in bitcoin values, surpassing the BRL 20,000 price mark. As a result, on April 10th, the total amount transacted was over BRL 2 Billion, (1 USD = 3.9 BRL) as shown in the graph below:

Brazil’s Economic Woes Push bitcoin Price Higher

Regulators and traditional banks have disrupted Brazil’s bitcoin exchanges. For example, several of Brazil’s bitcoin exchanges, such as bitcoin Market, have had their bank accounts closed because judges have ruled that traditional banks can terminate cryptocurrency exchange accounts at will.

Most recently, Santander Bank arbitrarily terminated the account of the bitcoin Max exchange. After a court battle, a judge denied bitcoin Max’s motion to reopen its bank account. However, last February, another judge reversed this decision because Santander Bank had failed to provide “prior written communication of the intention to terminate the contract.”

Despite the many hurdles attempting to stifle the development of the crypto market, Brazil’s economic realities dictate otherwise.

According to Reuters, in February 2019, the country’s economic activity was the lowest in the last nine months, adding,

The central bank’s IBC-BR economic activity index, a leading indicator of gross domestic product (GDP), fell 0.73 percent in February from January. That followed a revised drop of 0.31 percent in January, a smaller contraction than first reported.

Thus, many point to the country’s economic ills as one of the reasons for the upsurge of its cryptocurrency market, as The Rio Times put it,

A slump in the economy is likely the reason for the rise of cryptocurrencies in Brazil.

As Bitcoinist reported Monday, trading volume on peer-to-peer exchange LocalBitcoins has been surging across Latin America. Mexico, in particular, saw it’s biggest volume to date in pesos, following US President Donald Trump threatening to clamp down on remittances by illegal immigrants.

Brazil, meanwhile, has demonstrated a relatively steady weekly volume of about 1.6 million BRL.

Do you think the sluggish local economy contributes to the recent upswing in bitcoin’s trading activity in Brazil? Let us know in the comments below!

Images via Twitter/@CointraderM, Shutterstock

The Rundown

Published at Wed, 17 Apr 2019 01:00:48 +0000

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Estonia Considering Creating Its Own Cryptocurrency

Estonia is seriously thinking about creating its own digital currency called the estcoin. This move could bolster the country’s digital residents to almost ten times its actual population.

There’s no denying the stellar rise of cryptocurrency. What many initially scoffed at has now become a major economic force. Large financial institutions, such as Goldman Sachs and Fidelity Investments, have jumped onto the cryptocurrency bandwagon. Now a major seismic shift may occur as a country, Estonia, is considering creating its own digital currency: ESTcoin. Will this new currency become the Baltic bitcoin?

Estonia Occupies a Unique Position

Actually, the thought of Estonia creating its own virtual currency isn’t far-fetched. The small country occupies a unique position and is known for being extremely tech-savvy. It has the sixth-highest level of mobile broadband penetration in the world. In addition, the Wall Street Journal and Heritage Foundation have ranked Estonia as the sixth-freest country in the world, and the World Bank has ranked the country as number 12 in its Doing Business in 2017 report. The country’s income and corporate tax rates are very low as well, which does help draw in entrepreneurs.

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Using the Estcoin to Expand the Economy

The goal of Estonia’s estcoin is to raise funds to help expand the country’s economy and increase its global presence. The estcoin would be usable to purchase goods and services in the country and could be used to power domestic startups. Another thought is that the estcoin could be used to strike a blow for independence as more than 90% of the country’s market is controlled by foreign firms.

It appears that the estcoin could be based upon Ethereum, and Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, offered his opinion. He said, “An ICO within the e-Residency ecosystem would create a strong incentive alignment between e-residents and this fund, and beyond the economic aspect makes the e-residents feel like more of a community since there are more things they can do together. Additionally if these ESTcoins are issued on top of a blockchain (they could possibly be issued in multiple formats at the same time, nothing wrong with this) then it would become easy and convenient to use them inside of smart contracts and other applications.”

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What do you think about Estonia’s consideration of creating its own cryptocurrency? Let us know in the comments below.

The post Estonia Considering Creating Its Own Cryptocurrency appeared first on Bitcoinist.com.

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