Indian Crypto Exchange in 45 Countries Sees Strong Demand in Venezuela

An Indian cryptocurrency exchange, which is now live in 45 countries, reports that it is “seeing immense enthusiasm and buyer activity in Venezuela,” a spokesperson for the exchange told news.Bitcoin.com. Compared to other countries, “Venezuelans are looking more at the longer-term yield of bitcoin.”

Also read: Indian Supreme Court Moves Crypto Hearing, Community Calls for Positive Regulations

Live in 45 Countries

Indian cryptocurrency exchange Instashift is now live in 45 countries. After launching in India and Canada in February, the exchange began to roll out service in a slew of countries in November, offering support for 45 fiat currencies. A spokesperson for the exchange told news.Bitcoin.com on Thursday:

Presently, in the 45 countries we have launched [in], we are seeing immense enthusiasm and buyer activity in Venezuela … Venezuelan users were on a buying spree.

“We partnered with [a] few good local sellers,” the spokesperson said, confirming that his exchange plans to add “another 45 countries by April 2019.” Other than Venezuela, “We see demand from Panama, Thailand, Nigeria, Romania, Cameroon, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, and Ukraine,” he detailed.

The 45 countries that Instashift is live in are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Central African Republic, Chile, China, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Ghana, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Nigeria, Panama, Peru, Republic of Congo, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Thailand, UAE, Uganda, Ukraine, the U.K., the U.S., Venezuela, and Vietnam.

Citing similarity to Localbitcoins, the spokesperson claims, “As we are [a] pure peer-to-peer exchange with an instant coin conversion feature, there is no specific licensing for it at the moment.”

Strong Demand in Venezuela

The spokesperson shared with news.Bitcoin.com that, compared to other countries, “Venezuelans are looking more at the longer-term yield of bitcoin.” He elaborated, “Venezuelans, in general, are of the thought that cryptocurrency is a safe haven to keep their store of value rather than keeping it in their own currency where inflation is peaking at the top.” Furthermore, he described that “awareness amongst the crypto-communities” in many of the 45 countries “is quite low” compared to Venezuela.

Venezuelans can buy and sell over 120 coins on the Instashift platform. In addition to purchasing cryptocurrencies with the sovereign bolivar, the spokesperson pointed out that “it’s interesting to note they are using USD as well,” elaborating:

They are buying only BTC at the moment … [we] have not yet found any user seeking altcoins … [our] volume in Venezuela has been roughly growing 5-7% daily.

“We have more than 500 users there driving this volume,” he added, noting that Instashift uses the liquidity from major exchanges such as Binance to execute its “flip” orders. Flip is the exchange’s near-instant coin conversion service. “You can flip in under two seconds,” he claims.

On Localbitcoins, the BTC trading volume for Venezuela has also been growing significantly.

What do you think of the demand for BTC in Venezuela? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Instashift, and Coin.dance.

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