Russians appeared to have sought to exchange rubles for the crypto stablecoin Tether as a refuge during the short-lived mercenary rebellion that shook the nation over the weekend.
While the overall flows appear to be relatively small, Ruble-denominated Tether stablecoin trading volume more than tripled to around $15 million on June 24 across digital-asset exchanges still supporting trading of the Russian currency, according to blockchain data firm CCData. The largest platforms for ruble transactions as of this month were Binance, Cryptonex, HitBTC, and Coinsbit, CCData said. The US and its allies enacted financial sanctions last year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Stablecoins like Tether’s USDT are digital tokens designed to keep a one-to-one value with a less volatile assets like the ruble or dollar, typically by holding equal reserves of cash and cash-equivalent assets as collateral. They’re commonly used by traders as a way of transferring funds between exchanges and as a safe haven from price swings, making them some of crypto’s most-traded tokens.
A representative of Tether didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
To be clear, a spike in the trading volume does not directly indicate that ruble investors were buying Tether, according to Jamie Sly, communications manager at CCData. Sly said that, however, the uptick in ruble-denominated Tether trading volume could be due to “market participants looking toward a less volatile asset like USDT versus rubles, as similar trends were not observed for Bitcoin volumes.”
Clara Medalie, director of research at the blockchain data firm Kaiko, said in an email that the ruble-denominated Tether trading volume stands at its highest since last December. She also noted that most of exchanges have delisted trading pairs in ruble amid tightened sanctions on Russia. On Friday, an uprising led by Wagner Group and its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin had threatened Vladimir Putin’s almost quarter-century rule in Russia.
