Hong Kong Bitcoin Trading Volume Spikes to Highest Levels Ever Recorded

[vennali]

Interest in Bitcoin seems to be booming in Hong Kong. LocalBitcoins recorded its highest trading volume ever in the city-state this past week.
About $13 million HKD exchanged in the last week.

Article source

[Dabs]

Is that a lot of volume? That means coins trading hands, maybe some of those protestors are preparing for an exit, a Plan B ... with B for Bitcoin.

[avikz]

Interest in Bitcoin seems to be booming in Hong Kong. LocalBitcoins recorded its highest trading volume ever in the city-state this past week.
About $13 million HKD exchanged in the last week.

Article source

13 million HKD is not a great volume for a rich place like Hong Kong. It's around 1.7 million in USD at the current exchange rate! I am sure some people are trying to safeguard their wealth amidst the ongoing protest because China can go to any extent to immobilize the protesters!

Bitcoin/cryptos are the only way to hide their wealth from the regulatory authorities who might intervene to seize the wealth of the protesters to keep them out of the entire game!

[Duzter]

Interest in Bitcoin seems to be booming in Hong Kong. LocalBitcoins recorded its highest trading volume ever in the city-state this past week.
About $13 million HKD exchanged in the last week.

Article source

13 million HKD is not a great volume for a rich place like Hong Kong. It's around 1.7 million in USD at the current exchange rate! I am sure some people are trying to safeguard their wealth amidst the ongoing protest because China can go to any extent to immobilize the protesters!

Bitcoin/cryptos are the only way to hide their wealth from the regulatory authorities who might intervene to seize the wealth of the protesters to keep them out of the entire game!

As mentioned, China government is very strong in their stand. This is very worse for Hong Kong, even after several opposition from human rights commission and different other organizations China stands on its decision. Surely Hong Kong needs to be supported more, and the increased trading volume happening with Hong Kong portrays the mind of common people securing their hard earned money.

[vennali]

Is that a lot of volume? That means coins trading hands, maybe some of those protestors are preparing for an exit, a Plan B ... with B for Bitcoin.

I'm not sure to be honest. It is about 1.7 Million USD. Of course they are only counting the volume of 1 platform, so Im sure the actual value is much higher than that.

Interest in Bitcoin seems to be booming in Hong Kong. LocalBitcoins recorded its highest trading volume ever in the city-state this past week.
About $13 million HKD exchanged in the last week.

Article source

13 million HKD is not a great volume for a rich place like Hong Kong. It's around 1.7 million in USD at the current exchange rate! I am sure some people are trying to safeguard their wealth amidst the ongoing protest because China can go to any extent to immobilize the protesters!

Bitcoin/cryptos are the only way to hide their wealth from the regulatory authorities who might intervene to seize the wealth of the protesters to keep them out of the entire game!

Yeah, Most probably that is the reason for shifting to cryptocurrency. It is the trading volume for just 1 platform, so Im sure the figures must be much higher than that.

[Vishnu.Reang]

Interest in Bitcoin seems to be booming in Hong Kong. LocalBitcoins recorded its highest trading volume ever in the city-state this past week.
About $13 million HKD exchanged in the last week.

Article source

Another false flag news. 13 million HKD is the equivalent to $1.66 million. And $1.66 million over a duration of one week (although this is for just one of the platforms) looks extremely minuscule compared to the global Bitcoin trade volumes. I am quite sure that the trade volumes in countries such as Taiwan and South Korea are much higher than this.

[Darker45]

Interest in Bitcoin seems to be booming in Hong Kong. LocalBitcoins recorded its highest trading volume ever in the city-state this past week.
About $13 million HKD exchanged in the last week.

Article source

Frankly speaking, the article is not a news article. It is more of a speculation or an opinion piece, trying to connect certain events with each other. Although there could really be some truth to it. The Chinese governments must have closely monitored the protesters' spending more than ever, now that they are personally identified and are clearly stepping up their aggression against mainland China's influence over Hong Kong. And Bitcoin could be the best alternative payment option to many of them.

Hong Kong protests and the cryptocurrency market could really be good allies. Hong Kong protesters, after all, are pushing for autonomy against the authoritarian-style rule of the Chinese central government.

[kryptqnick]

Interest in Bitcoin seems to be booming in Hong Kong. LocalBitcoins recorded its highest trading volume ever in the city-state this past week.
About $13 million HKD exchanged in the last week.

Article source

13 million HKD is not a great volume for a rich place like Hong Kong. It's around 1.7 million in USD at the current exchange rate! I am sure some people are trying to safeguard their wealth amidst the ongoing protest because China can go to any extent to immobilize the protesters!

Bitcoin/cryptos are the only way to hide their wealth from the regulatory authorities who might intervene to seize the wealth of the protesters to keep them out of the entire game!

Yes, it seems natural that the protesters would prefer Bitcoin so that their money is safe. But they can also prefer it for political reasons so that they are not using the currency of any specific country and support decentralization. The talks about a possible connection started back during summer. There were a few articles about it, and there was even a thread on Bitcointalk dedicated to this topic. But the article, like others mentioned, does not really settle the matter. It's unclear whether there's a direct connection or whether it's a significant volume to discuss at all.

[omone1]

That certainly not a great volume, Hong Kong is definitely not a poor region. It's possible few persons carried out the transactions. I will love to see billions of dollars. 

[Carlton Banks]

Another false flag news.

you don't know what "false flag" means

please learn what "false flag" means, then you can use the expression appropriately (it is wrong in this case)

[electronicash]

the locals probably got a tip that BTC could be going up. its a good choice, buying BTC is the best they could have. good for them and good that they start seeing the use of bitcoin as an investment.  though i wouldn't hope for BTC to go up through these type of events like this protests and almost waging a civil war, it might just be the case.

[figmentofmyass]

to give some perspective, here's a historical chart of localbitcoins volume in HK, denominated in BTC:



on one hand, it's technically the biggest volume since 2017. on the other hand, it's less than 200 BTC exchanged weekly and doesn't stand out much on the chart. meh.

[Dabs]

I think some are setting aside some wealth in case they need to leave the country, they can do so and have all their coins in a USB stick, a hardware wallet, or even just some paper wallet hidden in an envelope or somewhere else no one is likely to look into.

[BitHodler]

It's just a few million on a weekly basis, definitely not something to cheer about. It reminds me of people pointing at Venezuela where the volumes were said to be increasing, while in dollar terms they did not.

Sure, HKD isn't subject to a similar rate of inflation, but what is similar, is that the volumes despite reaching new highs are peanuts compared to western USD volumes. It's almost pointless to even compare if you think about it.

On a more positive note, people in Hong Kong are trading on exchanges such as Binance too, where I am sure that the volumes generated there are orders of magnitude higher in dollar terms.

[1Referee]

Is that a lot of volume? That means coins trading hands, maybe some of those protestors are preparing for an exit, a Plan B ... with B for Bitcoin.

It's not a lot of volume if you just process the numbers of HK, but if you bundle all the countries going through economical/political turmoil, the volumes suddenly aren't that bad at all. In fact, this is only the start. I expect that the situation will be much worse in the forthcoming years, which will only drive Bitcoin adoption to the next level in these countries.

Another important fact is that a lot volume isn't being recorded on sites such as LBC, but settled truly peer to peer where only the sender and receiver know that the transaction took place. There is no viable way to measure the volume this way, which directly shows that Bitcoin is doing its job exceptionally well.

[clickerz]

I think some are setting aside some wealth in case they need to leave the country, they can do so and have all their coins in a USB stick, a hardware wallet, or even just some paper wallet hidden in an envelope or somewhere else no one is likely to look into.

Most probably sir, since the past months Hong Kong government is mired with rallies and protests.Those who are tech inclined persons opted to store their money in digital form like bitcoins for easy access and portability. This instability  causes this spark in interests on bitcoin so to speak especially to the millennial.

[debuni]

About $13 million HKD exchanged in the last week.

That's actually a pretty low volume but if it increased suddenly, it can also be a manipulation from Beijing, it will not surprise me coming from them they would do everything so that Hong Kong stays under their control.

In parallel, the protesters are very active on the deepweb and have networks of discussion to counter the Chinese surveillance, so it will not surprise me that they use Bitcoin.

[jaocoincrypto18]

That certainly not a great volume, Hong Kong is definitely not a poor region. It's possible few persons carried out the transactions. I will love to see billions of dollars.  

No one should underestimate this small volume as it was far better than none. We need more Bitcoin buying and holding specially in this bearish market trend so even it is just a tiny portion but still it is a big help for the  Bitcoin market to keep on moving.

[jseverson]

It's not a lot of volume if you just process the numbers of HK, but if you bundle all the countries going through economical/political turmoil, the volumes suddenly aren't that bad at all. In fact, this is only the start. I expect that the situation will be much worse in the forthcoming years, which will only drive Bitcoin adoption to the next level in these countries.

Are you referring to a specific figure? Would you mind sharing it? Local unrest does seem to affect volumes positively, but not in any significant degrees from what I've seen, even in these extreme cases.

Hong Kong can become a very important place for crypto, and can affect its price

They can prove that Bitcoin can help with anonymity for matters involving the protests, but affecting global prices is a long shot considering their currency isn't really at risk:

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the city’s de-facto central bank, buys local dollars if it gets too weak and sells to curb excessive strength.

It has plenty of firepower, with $448.5 billion of assets in its foreign exchange fund alone as of July, representing roughly seven times the currency in circulation, according to HKMA.

Getting rid of their HKD isn't a pressing matter at the moment.

[pooya87]

it seems like each time there is a spike in the volume that localbitcoins reports, one of these yellow news sites writes an article about how there is something "big" going on over in that country as if that's a thing. most of the times the volume is not even that high, in this case $1.6 mil is somewhat high but still not something to get excited about not to mention LBC's reports aren't that reliable to begin with.