Bitcoin Holdings of Japan Cryptocurrency Exchanges Skyrocketed Amid Pandemic

The Japan Virtual and Crypto Assets Exchange Association (JVCEA), a self-regulatory institution for the crypto sector in Japan, has released a document in March, revealing that the cryptos held by Japanese will increase by 11% from the earlier month.

XRP holdings rose 6.4% to 3.20 billion tokens. Ethereum (ETH) holdings also increased over 5.7% to 1.14 million ETH.

Additionally, holdings of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), NEM (XEM), Litecoin (LTC) and Monacoin (MONA) also increased slightly in March.

The volume of Bitcoin traded in spot market was ¥617.30 billion (roughly $5.80 billion) in March, up eleven times the trading volume of XRP, the second most traded cryptocurrency in that month.

Back in March, Bitcoin declined over 25%. It began the month at about $8,600 but on March 12, referred to as “Black Thursday,” it concisely plunged below $5,000. Bitcoin finished the month at about $6,400.

The motive for Japanese investors to boost their crypto possessions is not exactly clear. Yuya Hasegawa, a market analyst at the FSA endorsed cryptocurrency exchange Bitbank, detailed that normal price fluctuation and user’s crypto possession have inverse correlation.

We can argue that Japan’s Bitcoin enthusiasts did not refrain from investing in Bitcoin after the crypto market underwent sharp correction. There is also a possibility that Japanese investors were selling cryptos via exchanges, contrary to recent happening of Bitcoin withdrawal from Coinbase.

He further made his analysis as follows:

“In the time of downward price movement, you can say that users send cryptos to exchanges for the purposes of taking profits or loss cutting. Another reason might be a Japan premium in the BTC market compared with the US dollar-based market after March 12th”

Investors across the globe bought cryptos during Covid-19 pandemic. As per Mode, the UK-based cryptocurrency trading app, Baby Boomers (date of birth between 1946 and 1964) and Generation X (DoB between 1965 and 1980) investors have upped their monthly Bitcoin purchases since the beginning of the pandemic.

Janis Legler, chief product officer of Mode, pointed out that the conclusions draws “could potentially reveal an unprecedented change in the way investors think today, as a result of the global pandemic.”