Recently, there has been an increase in Bitcoin trading volumes on the popular P2P crypto exchange Paxful in the Philippines. It has led to considerable growth in the number of Bitcoin trades made using the Philippine Peso currency – over 40% since July 2021.
Data from Coin Dance reveals that the weekly Paxful volume for Bitcoin increased significantly over time. In July of last year, it was 68 million pesos, and in July 2022, it reached an all-time high of 111 million pesos ($1.9 million). In addition, 94 BTC were actually exchanged on Paxful against PHP during that particular week.
With the price of bitcoin plummeting in recent months, a surge of bitcoin trading has been seen on Paxful – especially from Philippine users. To coincide with the bearish market, around early-mid June, when BTC dropped below $19,000 for one coin, Paxful saw an increase in BTC trades being transacted to Pesos.
In July of this year, the amount of P2P trade worldwide also reached a record high. Statistics from Coin Dance show that 2101 BTC, or roughly $50 million, were traded on Paxful. Compared to July of the previous year, the trade volume was $40 million; there was a growth of about 25%.
Crypto Growth In The Philippines
This rapid growth of Paxful occurred in the Philippines, and It may be an alarming trend to watch out for because of how fast it loses value daily due to inflation. The country’s annual inflation rate jumped to 6.9% in September 2022 from 6.3% in August.
It marks a sharp increase compared to market expectations of 6.7%, exceeding the central bank’s monthly target range of 5.9 to 6.7%.
According to the Chainalysis 2022 research report, the Philippines has a high rate of cryptocurrency adoption, along with Vietnam and other countries. It ranks second among all nations just to Vietnam, scoring 0.753 out of a total possible score of 1.
On its way up from fifteenth place last year, it has secured its spot among the top ten ranking countries, while peer-to-peer cryptocurrency trading volume is at 66th place.
Moreover, the Philippines’ crypto sector has been growing exponentially; as per another survey report by Triple-A, it was found that 6.13% of Filipinos, or roughly 7 million people, are cryptocurrency owners.
Though the Philippines are still predominantly cash-based, an increased number of people are using digital payment options because of the pandemic of COVID-19. An estimate from the Philippine Fintech Report foresees that there were 7.2 million crypto transactions in 2020 with a value of $1.5 billion; this increase is almost fourfold compared to 2019.
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