Bitcoin Is More Valuable Than The Ruble Due To US And EU Sanctions For Russia

Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency to date, managed to climb past the Russian ruble in a great recovery from last week’s bearish actions.

The primary reason for Bitcoin’s climb is the geopolitical pressure that caused modern economies to impose financial sanctions against Russia for invading Ukraine’s territory in a so-called “special military operation”.

The ruble crashed over 30% following sweeping sanctions from western nations, and the cutoff of major regional banks from the world’s largest international financial messaging system - SWIFT.

Alex Kuptsikevich of FxPro explained the ruble crash in a report, noting that “At the moment, the ruble is in a state close to free fall.”

"At some point in the coming days, we will see the limit of the fall of the ruble, from where it will begin its slow and difficult recovery. But it is hardly possible to pinpoint.” Kuptsikevich added.

FTX CEO Sam Bankman Fried further hypothesized that the war conflict between Russia and Ukraine would spur people to withdraw their funds from weaker currencies into ‘hard money’ assets like Bitcoin. Indeed, Russians began a deposit withdrawal spree that sucked up almost all available bank capital and imposed risks of Russia’s banking system going into implosion.

The geopolitical uncertainty managed to pour fresh money into Bitcoin, effectively increasing both its price, trading volumes, and market capitalization. The latest wave of recovery for the world’s largest crypto made Bitcoin more valuable than the Mexican peso and the Thai baht after the ruble.

However, Bitcoin’s march past global currencies like the ruble and the Mexican peso is scheduled for a halt, since the next possible target for the now 14th largest global currency is the Swiss franc, with an approximate capitalization of 29,021,260 BTC. Given the fact that the current BTC in circulation is about 18,971,018 tokens, it would take a 52% rise (under ceteris paribus conditions) for Bitcoin to celebrate the capture of a new step in the global ladder.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s market cap explosion made the crypto leader the ninth-largest asset by market capitalization, surpassing Meta, Berkshire Hathaway, Visa, Mastercard, JP Morgan Chase, and the world’s largest ETF: the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust. On its way up, Bitcoin has to overcome companies like Tesla, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, as well as investment commodities like gold and silver.

Is Bitcoin remaining neutral in the Russia-Ukraine conflict?

The crypto community worldwide consolidated under the “take that, Russia” kind of market movement, clearly supporting Ukraine’s tries to stay afloat of the conflict.

The Ukrainian government has already provided wallet addresses for Bitcoin donations, while many crypto opinion-makers already took their part in developing a stance against Russia.

However, despite the crypto community and the Ukrainian government asking for a widespread ban on crypto wallets, but crypto exchange CEOs like Binance’s Changpeng Zhao answered that such a move “isn’t fair on the peaceful Russian population that has some crypto holdings.”

The crypto market rebounds after a hectic February

The crypto market seemed to have recovered not only from the Russia-Ukraine conflict, but it is also on the same levels as before the crisis. Bitcoin experienced one of its most turbulent months with a 30 low/high spread from $34,459.22 to $45,661.17. Currently, Bitcoin is seeing fresh support of around $43,000, securing a current price point of $44,031.58 per BTC.

Source: Crypto Browser

Ethereum, the second-largest crypto to date, however, is still on the verge of overcoming $3,000, despite reaching a monthly high of $44,031.58 on February 10. Given the massive increase in trading volumes, experts believe that Ethereum's rise would continue.

The rest of the crypto sector is following suit, with Terra (LUNA) being a prime example of a crypto that almost did not see a price change due to the conflict. Furthermore, LUNA is among the top weekly gainers, increasing its price by 65.54% as of press time.