Bitcoin, British Pound trading volume soars 1150% as UK's currency risks dollar parity

cointelegraph.com:

Bitcoin (BTC) will see increased interest from the United Kingdom “very quickly” as fiat currency volatility makes BTC look like a stablecoin.

That was the conclusion from Gabor Gurbacs, strategy adviser at investment giant VanEck, one of many flagging Bitcoin’s appeal over the pound this week.

As the U.S. dollar runs rampant, its strength has come at the expense of trading partner currencies, notably the euro, pound and Japanese yen.

The pound’s disintegration gathered pace this week, however, as GBP/USD hit its lowest on record at nearly $1.03.

With the United Kingdom’s central bank, the Bank of England, avoiding interventions so far, nerves are showing as purchasing power takes a double hit from currency weakness and inflation at forty-year highs.

“The United Kingdom will get orange-pilled very quickly given GBP volatility,” Gurbacs predicted.

The pound was down nearly 25% year-to-date at one point in USD terms. While Bitcoin beats it at 56%, data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows, the longer the time horizon, the more attractive a BTC hedge becomes.

“Over the past four years the dollar has collapsed -67% gains USD,” Michael Saylor, former CEO of MicroStrategy, noted in his own assessment of fiat currency losses on Sept. 26.

According to data from CoinShares head of research James Butterfill, trade volume for the GBP/BTC pair on major exchanges Bitstamp and Bitfinex, normally worth a combined $70 million per day, hit a giant $881 million on Sep. 26 — an increase of over 1,150%.

Butterfill argued that this showed that "when a FIAT currency is threatened, investors start to favour Bitcoin."

Reacting, Saifedean Ammous, author of the popular book, "The Bitcoin Standard," called the phenomenon "fascinating."

Gurbac