Bitcoin has overtaken the Russian Ruble after a crypto market surge coincided with Russia’s currency crashing, reported The Independent.

Аccording to CoinMarketCap’s price index, what happened was that the cryptocurrency reached above $41,000 on Monday afternoon, having traded below $35,000 as recently as Thursday.

The Ruble fell by around 25% in that same time period, reaching a new record low by dropping below $0.01 on Monday.

The fiat currency crash came amid increased sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, with the West introducing restrictions for some Russian banks to the global bank payments system SWIFT.

The latest bitcoin price surge was partly fuelled by customers exchanging Rubles for the cryptocurrency. Some market analysts suggest that BTC served as a store of value during times of increased geopolitical and economic uncertainty. Paolo Ardoino, CTO of the crypto exchange BitFinex, told The Independent that In these uncertain times, they have seen an uptick in the utility of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Photo credits: The Independent