In the wake of inching closer to its 2016 peak, CoinDance indicates that the worldwide weekly volume of popular P2P Bitcoin marketplace, LocalBitcoins, reached a new all-time high on record USD volumes last week with five countries - USA, Malaysia, Brazil, Venezuela, and Sweden - recording all-time highs within the same period.
LocalBitcoins CEO Nikolaus Kangas says:
“It was certainly one of the busiest weeks on our platform ever.”
The highest price of the top digital currency this year stands at $763.33 in June. Last week, the price reached $720.29, the closest to the peak rate for the year so far. As may be expected of the five countries, Venezuela recorded the highest leap due to the worsening economic situation in the country which may have compelled the people to seek an alternative means to earn, send and receive money for their use outside the use of traditional banking institutions.
Users follow price rise
Though Nikolaus Kangas did not confirm the claim as a “100 percent technical fact,” the illustration shows the volume on the platform that facilitates over-the-counter trading of local currency for Bitcoin reached $15.9 mln as on Oct. 29, 2016.
“I cannot say that it is 100 percent technical fact, since all of our income is in Bitcoin, and there are no ‘real’ price for Bitcoin,” Kangas says in an email. “Therefore it is difficult to calculate exact USD volumes, since we do not handle any USD ourselves”.
However, he cites the steady increase in the price of Bitcoin as a key factor that may have been responsible for a possible rise in the volume of trading across his platform. When the price increases, more people get interested about Bitcoins, he says.
“Of course we are really happy about it,” Kangas says about a new record. “But we are not thinking too much about it. We try to keep our focus on delivering reliable and good Bitcoin exchange experience to our customers.”