1/ People significantly underestimate the impact that countries with unstable currencies have on #Bitcoin prices
2/ Mining supply is currently ~12,600 BTC per week or ~$80mm. Putting this in context, weekly volume at @LocalBitcoins looks to have stabilized around ~$50mm per week after the late 2017 volume spike with a long term growth trend that looks to remain in place 
3/ For those who don’t know, @LocalBitcoins is an online marketplace that facilitates the peer to peer exchange of #BTC for local currency. This is great for analysis purposes because it means we can breakdown the data on a country by country basis
4/ Sure, activity in some currencies looks similar to the speculative activity seen in major exchange volume data, with huge spikes in activity corresponding to the price surge / volatility late last year. Take the UK for instance:
5/ But for every UK, there is a Russia
6/ A Venezuela (shown in BTC given Bolivar volatility)
7/ A Nigeria
8/ Or a Colombia
9/ Each of these countries has witnessed stable if not accelerating growth in LocalBitcoins transactions since inception. Other countries like India, Sweden, Peru, South Africa, Ukraine, Kenya and Mexico have had similar experiences
10/ Together these countries represent almost 5,000 BTC of weekly LocalBitcoins volume, or almost 40% of today’s mining supply:
11/ What’s most interesting to me is that each of these countries’ local currency has had horrible 5y performance versus $USD, go figure
12/ I don’t know what % of LocalBitcoins volume represents net inflows into these currencies but I would imagine it’s a significant % as once people have #BTC they’ll either hold it (capital flight) or send it to others for goods / services (why they bought it in the first place)
13/ Assume the right number is 50% for a minute, that means that transactions in these countries alone via LocalBitcoins account for 20% of total mining supply right now, 40% if you assume that prices drop another 50% and 80% if you also wait for the next #halvening
14/ It’s always tough to predict what #BTC holders will do; however this analysis suggests mining supply should have a relatively stable and welcoming home in the current price context and increasingly so as time passes if current levels continue
