Bitcoin has been trading at a premium against the Ukrainian hryvnia on a number of exchanges, both globally and locally, a sign of high demand. On Binance, the largest exchange in the world, bitcoin was trading for the equivalent of $45,894 in hryvnia terms. On Kuna, the largest exchange in Ukraine, it was at $46,847, and had traded as high as $51,240.

In U.S. markets, bitcoin was recently trading near $44,000 Tuesday night, up more than 17% since Sunday evening, according to data from CoinDesk.

On Binance, there has been a surge in trading volume of bitcoin in exchange for rubles since just before Russia’s invasion began. Between Feb. 20 and 28, about 1,792 bitcoins exchanged hands in the ruble/bitcoin trading pair, compared with only 522 in the nine days before that, according to data on Binance.

Western sanctions have effectively cut Russia off from the global financial network, and Ukraine has imposed strict capital controls.

Crypto is popular in Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine ranked fourth on a global adoption index created by analytics firm Chainalysis. A Russian government report estimates that there were more than 12 million cryptocurrency wallets held by Russian citizens with about 2 trillion rubles, equivalent to about $20 billion.

“The situation in Ukraine has brought to light the value of bitcoin as an alternative monetary network," said Timo Lehes, the co-founder of trading platform Swarm Markets.

A demand-driven rally specific to bitcoin is a break from its recent pattern, which has been to trade in line with risk assets like tech stocks.

Bitcoin’s rally this week wiped away losses for