Over the past week or so, the price of Bitcoin has been exploding across Indian cryptocurrency exchange platforms. Although this trend was first noted across low-volume platforms, other companies are seeing a similar development in the past day or so. Zebpay noted Bitcoin trades surpassing the US$1,000 value, despite the global average falling short of US$750.
India Remains Extremely Bullish on Bitcoin
What was first believed to be a temporary uptrend has turned into a phenomenon. Indian residents are flocking to Bitcoin as a way to hedge against future volatility. Moreover, with the recent cash debacle in the country, new assets have to be found sooner rather than later. Bitcoin, with its global appeal, seems to be attracting a lot of attention.
Earlier this week, smaller Bitcoin exchanges had noted trades far exceeding the global price per BTC. Paying a premium to buy bitcoin is not unusual, although price differences were as high as US$500 per Bitcoin. Considering the current global market average is US$735 per BTC, its nearly double the price other traders would spend at the time of writing.
But it seems this trend is far from over and is even growing larger as time progresses. Zebpay, one of India’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, noted the trading price surpassing US$1,000 earlier today as well. That is still far above the global market average, although it remains to be seen how high these prices can go in the coming days.
LocalBitcoins, the most popular peer-to-peer Bitcoin trading platform in the world, is showing far less high prices, though. That does not mean users will not pay a slight premium, as individual sellers can set their prices as high as they like. However, there is no US$250 discrepancy either, Despite this distinct advantage, the platform suffers from low volume, as only 280 BTC was traded last week.
It is difficult to predict if this situation will continue or change in the coming weeks. The majority of Indian Bitcoin exchanges do not make their trading volume public, making it virtually impossible to estimate growth or lack thereof. Either way, the demand for Bitcoin seems to be increasing, and people are more than willing to pay hefty premium prices per BTC right now. The bigger question is if this trend can expand to other countries before the end of the year.
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