Paxful, a popular peer-to-peer cryptocurrency exchange, has recently revealed that its transaction volume has been steadily increasing since January of 2018, leading to a year-over-year increase of 130.68%, when compared to 2017.

According to data shared with CryptoGlobe, Paxful has seen its users trade over $739 million last year, up from over $320 million in 2017. The figures are notable, as its number of users grew less than 20%, from 759,000 to 906,000 in said period.

This means that during 2017’s bull run Paxful’s users transacted significantly less bitcoin than they did during last year’s bear market, which saw the price of bitcoin drop from a near $20,000 all-time high to about $3,200 before it started recovering, according to CryptoCompare data.

Paxful noted that during the second semester of the year the “amount of trade has doubled,” alongside the transacted volume. At the end of November, the exchange claimed, the transacted volume started peaking. While it could be “related to the holidays,” the exchange notes:

Considering the price of bitcoin, it seems users tend to hold bitcoin or trade smaller values during the bull market and sell more during the bear market.

Notably, publicly available data from Coin.Dance shows that on the week of November 24 Paxful reached an all-time high in trading volume, as it saw $21 million change hands through its platform.

The data Paxful shared with CryptoGlobe further shows that in 2018 Africa saw the highest number of trades, at 17,351. Behind it was North America, with 10,729, followed by Europe with 594.

Users from Nigeria, the US, Ghana, and India transacted the most in USD terms last year. The company’s CEO has earlier this year revealed that bitcoin, the flagship cryptocurrency, has important use cases in developing countries.

Notably, gift cards were the dominant payment method on Paxful last year. iTunes gift cards notably represented the biggest slice of its trading volume at $281.6 million, and were followed by Amazon gift cards ($165.9 million), and the bank transfers ($48.7 million). The least popular payment method was PayPal, as the company’s policy on chargebacks makes it dangerous for some sellers.

When asked about how Paxful managed to thrive during the bear market and keep on growing while various cryptocurrency-related businesses have been struggling, the crypto exchange responded:

The price doesn’t matter. As long as there are people who use bitcoin to translate money. Those in developing countries and countries with declining currency, bitcoin has been their alternative currency.

It noted that while bitcoin’s price has been going down, its platform’s trading volumes have been going up. Per its representative’s words, “bitcoin will always be the best financial alternative.”