Retail investors are buying Bitcoin while institutions are selling, traders say

As the coronavirus outbreak unloads bitcoin along with stocks as part of a coronavirus-driven global sell-off, cryptocurrency’s traditional base — retail investors — are making big purchases, market participants say.

Despite the red prices, many trading platforms are seeing brisk business.
“Our March volumes have already surpassed all of our previous cumulative volumes,” said Alex Leishman, CEO of River Financial, a bitcoin-focused brokerage founded three months ago in San Francisco. “About 20% of our clients have signed up this month ... We’re seeing record interest from first-time bitcoin buyers.”
River Financial is relatively small, with less than 10,000 active user accounts, but the surge in volume appears to be rippling across the market. Carolyn Vadino, head of communications at Gemini, confirmed that its cryptocurrency exchange saw a surge in trading volume over the weekend.
“During this period of market uncertainty, we continue to expect to see higher than normal sales volumes,” Vadino said.
Similarly, a Latin American over-the-counter (OTC) trader who provides liquidity to several of the world’s major cryptocurrency exchanges said his desk has seen “two to three times” the normal number of orders since prices fell sharply on Thursday.
“You still have a lot of people eager to get out of this,” said the businessman, who asked not to be named. “It’s tied to the hedge fund liquidations, a lot of bitcoin-collateralized dollar loans given to miners or people who are long crypto.”

Source: Coindesk