Bank of Russia опубликовал a review of financial stability, which indicates that Russians have begun to trade cryptocurrencies more often - traffic coming from the Russian Federation to crypto exchanges has increased by 56,5% since March of this year.
The document states that the estimated balances of Russians in crypto exchange wallets as of September 2024 decreased compared to March (-15,8%) and amounted to 651 billion rubles, of which Bitcoin accounted for 69%, Ethereum (ETH) - 21%, stablecoins - 10%.
At the same time, web traffic of Russians on the websites of cryptocurrency exchanges increased by more than 56% during this period. The regulator noted that the main increase in the activity of Russians occurred in the second quarter of this year, when a record volume of web traffic of Russians on cryptocurrency platforms since the beginning of 2022 was recorded (about 88 million visits).
According to the regulator's position, the outflow of assets from crypto exchanges may be associated with a decrease in the level of market volatility after its significant growth in the fourth quarter of 2023 - first quarter of 2024, which had an impact on trading activity.
The key factor behind the above dynamics of the indicators in the reporting period was the expectation of continued growth in cryptocurrency prices against the backdrop of the expected easing of monetary policy in the United States, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation noted.