Against the backdrop of an ongoing Russian invasion, the price of the stablecoin USDT of Tether is Shooting up to 36.97 Ukrainian hryvnia (UAH) ($1.23) on the Ukrainian Kuna exchange Thursday. The total trading volume of all cryptocurrencies on the exchange ascended to about 4.4 million dollars in the last 24 hours.
During the same period, the mid-market rates of the currency data provider XE indicated that the UAH currency had only risen to a high of 29.89 per US dollar. In other words, the USDT conversion rate was much higher than typical UAH per US dollar transactions.
USDT has a theoretical one-to-one peg to the US dollar. At press time, the UAH/USDT trading pair is valued at 31.89 in Kunacompared to the UAH/USD exchange rate of 29.80. This indicates an implied premium of 6.55% for USDT. In the context, USDT is negotiating currently at its theoretical pair on other centralized exchanges, such as the global Binance platform. However, data from Binance Ukraine suggest that its USDT is trading at a higher than 7% premium to the Ukrainian hryvnia.
In the early hours of Thursday, the National Bank of Ukraine ad which had fixed the UAH exchange rate, limited cash withdrawal at banks and suspended the issuance of electronic money (fiat currencies in digital format). When a nation fixes the exchange rate for its currency, a black market quickly develops in which consumers transact currency based on rates that reflect real economic conditions.
NEW: Over $360k in #bitcoin has been donated to the Ukraine army in just one day
— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) February 24, 2022
in a video published on Thursday, Kuna founder Michael Chobanian, who is also president of the Blockchain Association of Ukraine, said that the exchange is operating normally and banks are still operating despite the disruptions. Chobanian described his country as being in a state of “full-time war” and launched a cryptocurrency background to help charities that help the Armed Forces and the government of Ukraine in their resistance against the Russian invasion. “Let’s hope for peace, but if you want peace, you have to prepare for war”Chobanian said.
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