The trading volume on the crypto exchange LocalBitcoins has reached new highs for some countries in North and South America.

Latin America’s P2P markets have grown strongly in recent weeks. This is the result of figures from the statistics website coin.dance. Particularly striking were the numbers for Chile, Peru and Venezuela. But even in Canada, a record was broken: Never before have been exchanged on LocalBitcoins as many Canadian dollars against Bitcoins as in recent weeks.

Venezuela — Deceptive numbers

Ever since the introduction of the controversial Petro in Venezuela, interest in cryptocurrencies is growing. On LocalBitcoins, traders have exchanged record amounts to Bolivar in Bitcoins. In the first week of June, the BTC market recorded transactions worth 487 BTC or seven trillion Bolivars.

But beware: The numbers are to be treated with caution, given the hyperinflation the country is struggling with.

Inflation grew to a staggering 13,800 percent in April. In order to tackle the problem and ease the stranglehold on the financial markets, President Maduro and Petro introduced some kind of state cryptocurrency in February . Next, he plans to found a crypto bank .

Peru — New records for BTC and Fiat

Measured in Fiat currencies, Peruvian trading volume on LocalBitcoins reached its highest level since December last year. The previous record was over 1,500,000 Peruvian Sol (equivalent to about 453,000 dollars) and was achieved in the week of 23/12/2017. Nearly half a year later, this value has almost doubled: more than 2,760,000 PEN (about 835,000 US dollars) were traded on LocalBitcoins in the last week of May.

The situation is similar with regard to Bitcoin: Here, the previous record was 80 BTC trading volumes per week. It was already set up in December 2015. In the week of 26/05/2018, the market volume reached a new high of 106 BTC. In the following week, the volume shrank again; at 88 BTC, however, it is still well above average.

Chile — high at Fiat

If you count in BTC, Chile has broken no records in the past few weeks. For over a year, the weekly trading volume has not exceeded the 40 BTC mark. The all-time high of 143 BTC dates back to July of 2015.

Quite different is the Fiat volume. For example, traders on LocalBitcoins made deals worth 235,000,000 Chilean pesos (around 255,000 US dollars) in the first week of May this year. That is a new record. Although volume has fallen again in the following weeks, Chilean sales on local bitcoins continues to grow.

Canada — LocalCoin Peak in May

There is also good news for LocalBitcoins from the north of the Americas: In Canada , traders have set a new trading volume record both in the crypto and fiat sectors. In the penultimate week of May this was 1,200 BTC or about 12,000,000 Canadian dollars (just under 12,260,000 US dollars). For comparison: The previous highs were at 909 BTC and around 8,000,000 CAD (6,140,000 USD).

Whether or not this will lead to an upward trend, however, remains uncertain: In the last two weeks, the Canadian trading volume on LocalBitcoins shrank back to 78 BTC and 760,000 CAD (583,000 USD).