The number of digital coins, nominally Bitcoin, XRP, and Ether, held across Japan has reportedly experience an increase throughout the ongoing global health crisis. 

Specifically, The Japan Virtual and Crypto Assets Exchange Association (JVCEA) – a crypto-focused self-regulatory entity in Japan – has reportedly released its findings regarding the nation’s holdings of major cryptocurrencies in March. 

Per the report, local exchange platforms reportedly held 169,376 BTC – an 11% surge compared to the figure recorded in February 2020. XRP and Ether also climbed up, by 6.4% to 3.2 billion and 5.7% to 1.14 million respectively. 

Additionally, the number of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Monacoin (MONA), Litecoin (LTC), and NEM (XEM) also underwent a slight incline during March. 

Bitcoin spot trading volume reportedly stood at 617.3 billion yen (about $5.8 billion) in March – surpassing the same figure for XRP – the coin ranked 2nd regarding traded volume that month – by 11 times. 

In March, Bitcoin reportedly witnessed a 25% drop. It began the month standing at approximately $8,600 dollars, but on March 12th – generally referred to as “Black Thursday” – it went through a steep fall for a short period, down to under $5,000, and closed off the month around $6,400.

“In the time of downward price movement, you can say that users send cryptos to exchanges for the purposes of taking profits or loss cutting. Another reason might be a Japan premium in the BTC market compared with the US dollar-based market after March 12th” Yuya Hasegawa, a market analyst at the FSA licensed crypto exchange Bitbank – reportedly explained how price movement and user’s holdings of crypto often are are “correlated inversely”.