February 2021 Paxful and LocalBitcoins P2P Bitcoin Transaction Volume Report
Bitcoin has firmly established itself above $30,000 in January 2021 while February was notable for a number of important news regarding institutional adoption.
March 12, 2021 — The volume of Bitcoin transactions in the Philippines in February 2021 has decreased by 9% compared to the previous month according to data available for peer-to-peer exchanges Paxful and LocalBitcoins. Bitcoin’s P2P monthly volume on both marketplaces have remained above the $3 million mark after retreating below that level in December 2020.
For the month of January, the combined volume of transactions for both Paxful and LocalBitcoins totaled $3,663,796 based on the data from usefultulips.org, which aggregates information from the Paxful and LocalBitcoins APIs. This is a slight decline when compared to January’s volume of $4,050,529 while still a sharp increase when compared to the last three months of 2020, which totaled $3,256,973, $3,397,176, and $$2,845,734 respectively. Current volumes are on par with the volume recorded in July, August, and September last year.
Note: BitPinas is a Paxful partner.
The chart below shows the volume since May for both marketplaces. Majority of the volume is still with Paxful while LocalBitcoins shows a relatively static growth since May 2020.
According to Paulo del Puerto, CEO of locally licensed Moneybees, which is also a verified vendor on Paxful, they have also observed an increase in P2P volume as well as users. Paulo attributed it to crypto increasingly gaining positive sentiment and population among traders old and new.
“We see a lot of people using P2P as a way for them to cash-in and cash-out of order-book exchanges that they use and some use it as their main trading channel.” – Paulo del Puerto, Moneybees
Bitcoin has firmly established itself above $30,000 in January 2021 while February was notable for a number of important news regarding institutional adoption. One key highlight was Tesla announcing it invested $1.5 billion into Bitcoin. Bitcoin cemented its place above $40,000 in February and at the time this article is written, it is trading above $50,000.
January and February were also marked by news about retail investors in the U.S. organized collectively in online forums to push prices of the GameStop stock (and other similar penny stocks) higher. At some point, some of these investors have spilled into cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, attractive because of their anti-censorship and store of value properties. Unlike stocks that can be halted from being traded, cryptocurrencies are traded 24/7 every day of the week. There are multiple outlets and exchanges where crypto can be traded as well. (Read More: Crypto Trading Still A Very Personal Process in the Philippines)
According to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), it expects an increase in cryptocurrency transactions and volume in the Philippines due to their increasing prices and store of value properties. These traits have attracted users in the Philippines have attracted users in developing countries like the Philippines, BSP’s Melchor Plabasan said in an interview. Virtual asset service providers in the country have processed around $1.5 billion between January to September 2020.
This article is published on BitPinas: February 2021 Paxful and LocalBitcoins P2P Bitcoin Transaction Volume Report
