Tether And Ruble Tango During Power Struggle Between Vladimir Putin, Wagner's Yevgeny Prigozhin

The trade volume between the Russian ruble and Tether USDT/USD saw a significant increase over the weekend, nearly quadrupling from $4 million Saturday to $15 million Sunday, as per data from crypto analytics firm CCData.

What Happened: This surge coincided with the capture of the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary group, and his forces' subsequent advance toward Moscow, seemingly in an attempt to overthrow Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

Following a Belarus-mediated agreement with Putin, Prigozhin reportedly agreed to halt his advance and exit Russia, leading to a decrease in the trading volumes between rubles and Tether to around $3 million as tensions eased.

Why It's Important: This is not an isolated incident, as trading volumes between rubles and USDT have previously seen a surge.

For instance, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022, the trading volume between the Russian currency and the leading stablecoin by market cap experienced a significant increase, reaching over $37 million.

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This data is sourced from Kaiko, which tracks trading data on rubles and USDT from crypto exchanges Binance and Huobi.

Several other cryptocurrency exchanges have delisted the ruble in response to widespread sanctions against Russia.

In times of crisis affecting the dollar value of national currencies, a shift toward stablecoins is a common occurrence. For example, the Russian ruble experienced a rapid devaluation following Putin's order to invade Ukraine, although it did recover shortly thereafter.

Similarly, amid an ongoing economic crisis, Argentina witnessed a substantial increase in trading volume between the Argentinian peso and stablecoins like USDT and Circle’s USD Coin USDC/USD.

Stablecoins have also been a consistent interest for those in Venezuela suffering from a prolonged economic crisis.

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