BTC, ETH See Massive Pump as Russian Ruble Crumbles

The sanctions imposed on Russia have caused the ruble to collapse, and its value against the US dollar has fallen by almost 20% in the last 24 hours. Nikolai Arefiev, deputy chairman of the Duma economic policy committee, said last week the country can confiscate rubles from citizens in the event of an economic collapse.

The dramatic drop and threat of confiscation of money from citizens' bank accounts has been correlated with a huge increase in the price of bitcoin, suggesting that the Russians are trying to dump rubles for bitcoins. Demand for the cryptocurrency could also come from Ukrainians looking for a digital solution to money as many flee the country or prepare for further disruption in the wake of the Russian invasion.

Some journalists in Ukraine have reported that ATMs were emptied and most credit card terminals were not working, which likely contributed to the cryptocurrency rush.

I have a car today. I bought it with #bitcoin as all the ATMs are almost empty and the credit card terminals are down. Hopefully, it will allow us to report a bit of #Donbass while also keeping us safe and giving us an escape if things start to heat up here.

-Emil Filtenborg (@efmikkelsen) February 25, 2022

Equity markets were mostly down on the day, with the S&P 500 down 0.26%. The Dow followed suit, falling 0.49%, while the Nasdaq ended the day 0.34% higher, although it was in the red for most of trading.

Bitcoin, ether, and most other cryptocurrencies saw huge gains. Bitcoin led the way with a daily gain of more than 10%, and Ether posted a 7.5% gain.

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Should the bitcoin-as-a-store-of-value use-case narrative fully pay off, it may once again decouple from risky assets and stocks, such as tech stocks. Rising inflation and the ongoing turmoil in Ukraine are feeding directly into that, knocking Bitcoin out of its recent rut.

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