Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began last Thursday, bitcoin has risen 13%. Both Russia and Ukraine have seen huge upticks in trading volume. “Basically, having a currency that is not controlled by the government, that is not affected by the emergency acts … is really interesting,” said Bea O’Carroll, managing director at Radkl, a digital asset firm. “Maybe this is how Russia gets its value moved around. Equally, on the other side, there was ‘this is how people are going to get value to the Ukrainians.'” Russian banks have lost access to the global SWIFT system, causing some to speculate that cryptocurrency ... (full story)