Fundstrat’s Tom Lee: Devaluation of Fiat Currencies Causing Bitcoin On-Chain Volume to Take Off

We have already seen how the fiat currencies around the world, be it Argentina’s peso, Venezuelan Bolivar or Turkish Lira, are failing as a currency. Countries all over the world are being run over by rising inflation and dropping value of their money, along with slowing economy and political unrest.

It isn’t surprising South America saw a huge surge in Bitcoin trading volume throughout last year and moving into 2019, countries like Thailand, Brazil, and Argentina continue to lean towards digital currencies.

Bitcoin bull and Fundtrat’s Tom Lee recently shared in an interview with CNBC’s Future Now that the rising Bitcoin transaction volumes that haven’t been seen since the last bull run in December 2017, are driven by the increasing adoption of the flagship cryptocurrency in countries having currency, economic, and /or political crisis.

“What I think we have to remember is crypto is probably a 70% story outside the US. And I think events like Venezuela and the devaluation of the Turkish lira, these have actually caused on-chain volumes to take off because on a LocalBitcoins basis, people are saying, ‘Look, I don’t trust using these local currencies. I don’t trust the banks. I’m going to start using Bitcoin.'”

Crypto Whales Buying BTC

Moreover, Lee shared what’s going behind the scenes in the Bitcoin space. Talking about the over-the-counter trading desks, Lee said whales are buying BTC in huge amounts and these investors with deep pockets are seeing a new surge.

“We surveyed OTC brokers. They’re very important in terms of how institutional investors trade crypto. And universally, they’ve all talked about a 60-70% increase in activity levels, the number of clients. And the trading per client is really taking off lately.”

All of this coupled with Bitcoin’s recent rise above the 200-day moving averages is a sign that crypto winter is finally coming to an end.

At the time of writing BTC/USD has been trading at $5,245 with 24-hours loss of 0.77 percent, as per Coinmarketcap where it is managing the daily trading volume of $13.8 billion while recording at $416 million as per Messari.io, registering a fall.

Recently, we reported the latest research from Adamant Capital stating that Bitcoin is in “heavy accumulation” where the market trades in a range as weak hands have taken the profits and strong hands looking to accumulate and

“buy at the bottom of the range which eventually creates a floor in the piece.”

Currently, the market is waiting for a drop which could have us at above $4k but there is no surety in crypto space as to how low we will be going. The market could see a drop below $4k like in 2015 bear cycle but experts emphasize on the strong fundamentals that might won’t let us see that low.

What are your views on the crypto whales buying Bitcoin? Do you see BTC going under $4k or an upcoming surge to $6k?