Bitcoin was still the most popular crypto in Russia in October 2021, surpassing coins like Litecoin and Tether. Nearly half of the retail investors in Russia think that cryptos like Bitcoin are a great hedging asset that is linked to a stable income.
A new survey by financial publication Investing.com has polled 1,000 Russian retail investors. Through the survey, it was discovered that most of the requested types of alternative investments were cryptos. Based on this survey of 1,000 Russian retail investors, 46% of the participants viewed crypto as a possible defensive asset enabling them to hedge against financial constraints and risks during times of an economic crisis.
Russian retail investors favored crypto over real estate with around 37% of the respondents investing in alternative assets considered acquiring real estate an effective investment instrument. Real estate has for many years been at the top hedging assets list in Russia, based on a statement by the head of Investing.com’s Russian division, Anastasia Kosheleva.
Anastasia Kosheleva noted that cryptos have emerged as the largest investment trend this year as they outmuscled and outstripped other traditional assets like stocks and foreign exchange currencies. Out of the many cryptos in the market, Bitcoin is the most popular alternative investment for the Russians.
Based on a study by the big data platform Brand Analytics, was the most popular crypto last month in Russia, eclipsing Litecoin and Tether in terms of social media mentions. Cryptos have started growing majorly popular among the Russian investors in recent years, with around 77% of the investors in the country choosing bitcoin over gold in a survey conducted in 2020.
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In the past week, the Bank of Russia unleashed a financial stability report, highlighting the nation’s growing role in the global $2.8 trillion crypto market. The central bank said that Russia ranks third globally in terms of the national bitcoin hash rate and is one of the largest users of the Binance crypto exchange.
Amid the rising inflation and the continuing coronavirus pandemic, most of the global investors have been majorly looking at cryptos like BTC to act as a hedge against financial risk. Damian Courvalin, Goldman Sachs’ head of energy research, insists that investors have been majorly hedging against inflation using cryptos and traditional assets like gold.
Courvalin said in mid-November:
“Just like we argue that silver is the poor man’s gold, gold is maybe becoming the poor man’s crypto.”
In the past, Vimal Gor, Pendal Group’s head of alternative duration strategies, argued that cryptos need to be included in the new alternative defensive portfolios since government bonds have lost their value as hedges against financial risk.
