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May 2 (Reuters) - Can inherently volatile cryptocurrencies become safe-havens? Apparently they can in some parts of the world, such as Argentina and Turkey, where soaring prices and tumbling local currencies have forced people to seek refuge in digital coins.

Ownership of digital currencies in Turkey was the highest in the world at 27.1% followed by Argentina at 23.5% -- well above global crypto ownership rate estimated at 11.9% -- according to data from research firm GWI.

What's common to Turkey and Argentina besides their pole positions in crypto adoption is high inflation, which has led to crumbling currencies and capital controls to deter local residents from taking money out. Turkey's annual inflation was 50.51% in March, Argentina's was even higher at 104%.

The lira and peso have been plunging and are at record lows. Argentina's peso trades around 464 per dollar in the black market , more than double the official exchange rate of 222.

Much of the safe-haven buying has been of stablecoins such as USD Coin (USDC) and Tether (USDT), which are crypto tokens pegged one-to-one to a traditional asset such as the U.S. dollar or gold, giving investors an alternative to scarce dollars.

"Folks, whether they're on the retail side or institutional side, are thinking about how can we hedge against currency devaluation," said Ehab Zaghloul, chief research scientist at Tribal Credit, a digital payments platform for startups in emerging markets.

"They want to potentially hold additional assets pegged to a stronger currency, so, things like USDC or USDT or anything pegged to a stronger currency like the U.S. dollar."

Trading volume for the USDT-Turkish lira pair reached a multi-month high last week, driven by the weakening of the Turkish currency and the upcoming landmark presidential and parliamentary elections, Kaiko analyst Dessislava Aubert said.

"In general, crypto adoption tends to be higher in countries with capital restrictions, financial instability, and political instability," analysts at K33 Research wrote.

While bitcoin , the world's biggest and best-known cryptocurrency, is up 72% this year at $30,000, its highest in 10 months, overall trading volumes are far from levels seen last summer after investors were spooked by a series of collapses of crypto players culminating in FTX's demise.

Trading volumes for spot bitcoin are highest during U.S. opening hours, with little change from 2022, Kaiko data showed.

However, regulatory issues faced by crypto exchange Binance in recent months have led to a slight shift in derivative trading volume towards Asia Pacific hours from Americas, Kaiko said.

If dollar to crypto volumes are excluded, then the next most dominant currency is South Korea's won .

Crypto trading volumes in South Korea are back to levels seen in first quarter and second quarters of 2022 after a weak fourth quarter in 2022, analysts at crypto investment firm Matrixport said.

"The dominance of altcoins makes South Korea a very interesting market to analyse," Matrixport analysts said.

"This is in stark contrast to other crypto exchanges where bitcoin and Ethereum account for the majority of the volume."

Reporting by Medha Singh and Lisa Mattackal in Bengaluru; Editing by Vidya Ranganathan and Sam Holmes

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

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Cryptoverse: Digital coins lure inflation-weary Argentines and Turks - Reuters

Bitcoin is under pressure as the Federal Reserve has indicated that rates could go higher than expected and after a major crypto-focused lender, Silvergate Capital, collapsed.

Jonathan Raa | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Cryptocurrencies took a dip on Monday to start the week and new month as investors bet the takeover of First Republic Bank could put an end to the financial crisis, which has been the biggest driver of this year's bitcoin rally.

Bitcoin fell about 4.2% to 28,137.76 to start the week and new month, according to Coin Metrics. Ether lost 4% to 1,828.81.

On Monday regulatorstook possession of First Republic, making it the third U.S. bank failure this year and the biggest one since the 2008 financial crisis. JPMorgan Chase will acquire most of its deposits and assets.

Last week, the price of bitcoin rallied in the final week of April as troubles at the bank unfolded. Trading of the cryptocurrency has been choppy, however, as investors straddle the effects of the banking crisis on crypto with high inflation, Federal Reserve policy, a potential recession and an increasingly bearish narrative building around the U.S. dollar.

"It's unclear whether the banking crisis narrative can continue to be a boon for bitcoin," said Alex Thorn, head of firmwide research at Galaxy. "Overall, the market lacks clear positive near-term catalysts, with supply issues overhanging bitcoin That being said, bitcoin accumulation by small addresses is outpacing issuance, and we expect Ethereum staking to increase, each of which provides a supportive supply narrative."

"Outside of crypto-native factors, we expect a back-of-the-year macro environment to be characterized by tightening, recession, and an expanding multipolarity in the global economy, all of which can be supportive of gold and bitcoin," he added.

Investors have been expecting a slowdown from bitcoin's first-quarter rally, although cryptocurrency remains on its upward trend and has gained about 70% for the year, after finishing down more than 60%. April marked the first time in two years that bitcoin notched a fourth consecutive positive month.

"Bitcoin and ether started 2023 inorganically cheap, allowing for plenty of room to move higher off a low-base effect," Thorn said. "A widening banking crisis became evident in March and the contrast with Bitcoin's transparent and decentralized nature provided a further leg up for bitcoin, while Ethereum's successful Shanghai upgrade provided a catalyst for ethereum."

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Bitcoin pulls back to start May as First Republic Bank saga comes to an end - CNBC

(Bloomberg) -- Bitcoin slipped back Monday after climbing for four consecutive months through April in the longest such winning run since 2021.

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The token slid as much as 4.5% and was trading at $28,221 as of 2:16 p.m. in New York. Smaller coins such as Ether and Solana also retreated, as did an index of the top 100 digital assets.

Bitcoins 72% rebound in 2023 from last years crypto rout has stalled around the $30,000 level as traders await further catalysts. The rally has been fueled by bets on an eventual Federal Reserve pivot to looser monetary policy as well as arguments that the US banking crisis eroded confidence in fiat currency.

First Republic Bank is at the center of the latest leg of the banking woes in the US. JPMorgan Chase & Co. won the bidding to acquire the bank in an emergency government-led intervention after private rescue efforts failed to fill a hole on the troubled lenders balance sheet and customers yanked their deposits.

The market is very jittery as it waits to see what happens to First Republic Bank, said Adrian Przelozny, head of crypto exchange Independent Reserve. Mondays Bitcoin wobble may be just volatility related to this, and some long positions got liquidated as the market dropped a bit, which then cascaded.

Bitcoins four-month stretch of gains through April ranks as the longest since a six-month advance to March 2021. In the past decade, four-month winning runs in Bitcoin foreshadowed an average surge of 260% over the subsequent year, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Bitcoin and the wider crypto world remain exposed to a variety of risks, such as the US crackdown on the sector and the possibility of traders paring back expectations that monetary policy will become less restrictive later this year.

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For now, the Fed is expected to boost interest rates by another quarter percentage point on Wednesday to damp inflation even as economic risks build.

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Bitcoin Sags After its Longest Streak of Monthly Gains Since 2021 - Yahoo Finance

What happened

Since late afternoon yesterday, the price of the world's largest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, has traded 3.5% lower as of 1:42 p.m. ET today as investors braced for the Federal Reserve's upcoming meeting, which begins tomorrow.

The Fed is widely expected to raise interest rates by a quarter of a point when it wraps up its meeting on Wednesday, but I think the market will be paying closer attention to the Fed's remarks after its meeting.

One of the big reasons Bitcoin and the crypto market have rallied this year is the belief that the Fed will end its intense interest rate hiking campaign, which has proved devastating to riskier assets like Bitcoin. But it's still not a given because the trajectory of inflation may prove stickier than the market thinks, although there have been signs of inflation slowing in recent months.

Another potential reason for the decline in Bitcoin today could also have to do withJPMorgan Chase's acquisition of most of the assets fromFirst Republic Bank. First Republic has really struggled since the banking crisis began in March and saw more than $100 billion of deposit outflows in the first quarter of the year.

The acquisition by JPMorgan helps to stabilize the banking system and it also resulted in a smaller loss to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s (FDIC) Deposit Insurance Fund than many expected. Because cryptocurrencies were developed as an alternative to the mainstream banking system, Bitcoin has tended to perform well when investors were worried about the banking system.

The belief that the Fed will soon pause its interest rate hikes and struggles in the banking system have been two consistent themes driving Bitcoin higher this year.

But now investors are nervous about the Fed meeting and a resolution to First Republic does provide some stabilization in the sector. However, I still think Bitcoin will be a good long-term investment and is worth having some exposure to.

JPMorgan Chase is an advertising partner of The Ascent, a Motley Fool company. Bram Berkowitz has positions in Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin and JPMorgan Chase. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Continued here:

Why Bitcoin Is Falling Today - The Motley Fool

Houston, Texas, USA - February 27, 2022

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Bitcoiners will tell you that education is the greatest impediment to bitcoin adoption. To bitcoin beginners, it trades like a tech stock, so it must be similar. But if you dare to dive deeper, the stock correlations, and even the price of bitcoin, become much less interesting. Its more helpful to think about bitcoin as digital gold, a scarce asset with a marginal cost of production.

That may be enough for some to start using bitcoin as a portfolio diversification tool. For those seeking a greater understanding, learning about bitcoin on your own can feel intimidating. Luckily, these four teachers are helping educate the next generation of bitcoiners, often posting free tutorials online for everyone who wants to learn.

BTC Sessions is a bitcoin educator based out of Canada. He hosts a YouTube channel and podcast dedicated to practical knowledge for bitcoin users.

Sessions found Bitcoin while he was a breakdance teacher. He credits his teaching experience with helping him to break down concepts in an easily digestible format. The YouTube channel began as a way to solve his own problems.

I probably tore my hair out half a dozen times trying to navigate basic wallets and security, Sessions told me in an interview, explaining the motivation behind his shows.

Sessions hosts two weekly shows, one that features news, and another with open ended bitcoin discussions. He also has hundreds of tutorials for the more technical aspects of using bitcoin and bitcoin hardware. His channel now boasts nearly 200k viewers a month.

Phil Snyder is a digital media professor at the University of Houston, having taught video and animation production for over a decade. He found bitcoin in 2020, which quickly began to dominate his attention. He developed a bitcoin curriculum and began the course in the fall semester of 2021.

I make it very clear that the Bitcoin protocol is really the only game really worth playing, Synder quipped in an interview with me.

His course features the cypher punk history that eventually led to bitcoins creation. It also covers bitcoins specific and still developing history. Snyder alluded to a desire to add coding to the curricula, but that is not yet in progress. While not teaching, he enjoys educating the public through articles with Bitcoin Magazine.

Guy Swann started his podcast, Bitcoin Audible, after becoming frustrated with the amount of content in audio form. His podcast focuses on reading impactful articles so that people who dont have the time to read no longer have to.

When asked why he keeps going, Swann told me he felt a moral obligation to educate the public about bitcoin. In our interview, he communicated his dissatisfaction with the crypto community equating bitcoin to just another app on your phone. His goal is to help cut through that narrative. Swanns podcast receives more than 150,000 downloads per month, which has enabled him to focus on it full time. He has also narrated 16 bitcoin books on AmazonsAMZN Audible, with a potential for two more in the near future.

Tim Niemeyer is an Air Force veteran and elementary school teacher. He began his journey in 2018 and now co-hosts the Lincolnland Bitcoin Meetup in Springfield, Illinois. While he cannot advocate for bitcoin in an official capacity, he has found ways to instill bitcoin principles into the classroom.

In an interview. Niemeyer told me that he harps on personal responsibility and producing value. He says that bitcoin has made him more patient, shifting his focus to development and behavioral concerns, rather than day to day minutia of lesson plans.

The autonomy for educators to use their creativity in lesson planning has been removed and replaced with scripted lessons, Niemeyer explained, referencing his new behavioral development focus.

While not teaching or spending time with his family, Niemeyer also enjoys contributing to Bitcoin Magazine.

A common thread through all of these interviews was a message of hope. All of the above-mentioned teachers and podcasters remain optimistic that through education, they can help to change the narrative surrounding bitcoin one person at a time.

Im a freelance writer exploring the bitcoin ecosystem. My work has been published by Bitcoin Magazine and Bitcoin News. Im personally invested in bitcoin and am fascinated by the emerging bitcoin economy.

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4 Bitcoin Teachers Offering Online Education And Free Resources - Forbes