As Hong Kong’s protest intensifies, market observers are noticing a surge in demand for bitcoin in Hong Kong. Bloomberg reported that Bitcoin was trading at about 4% premium in Hong Kong.

Whereas a CCN report is showing that sellers on peer-peer exchange platform LocalBitcoins are demanding a premium of between HK$ 1170 and HK$39,000 (US$150 and $US5,000).

Quartz reporter Mary Hui, shared that protesters are reluctant to use their Octopus cards for fear being tracked by the government and they are instead using single journey tickets.

There is usually never a line at the train ticketing machines. Judging from an overheard convo, it appears that people are reluctant to use their rechargeable Octopus cards for fear of leaving a paper trail of them having been present at the protest. pic.twitter.com/s1rsgSnCqL

— Mary Hui (@maryhui) June 12, 2019

She further adds in a report stating that using Octopus card data to trace “criminal suspects” is not new and has been used by the police as early as 2010.

It is unclear whether the demand for Bitcoin is coming from protesters who fears that their transactions may be tracked or if it is from Hong Kongers who are simply turning to Bitcoin as safe a haven asset.

If it is the former, protesters maybe in for a rude surprise as Hong Kong regulators have indicated in the past that cryptocurrency exchanges are closely monitored and it is not as anonymous as many would have thought as cybersecurity expert Edward Snowden has testified.

Image Credit: Studio Incendo [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons