Two cryptocurrencies with ties to Russia are defying the market selloff today.

Waves, the No. 59 crypto, was the only cryptocurrency in the top 100 other than stablecoins not in the red this afternoon.

It was up 1.8 per cent to $18.84, having risen 66.9 per cent in the past seven days.

Founded in 2016 by Ukrainian Sasha Ivanov, Waves is a permissionless platform for easily creating tokens.

A 2019 article in Coindesk headlined “Waves and the Tricky Task of Being a Russian Crypto Brand” described the project as being based in Moscow and “walking a fine line between being friendly with Russia’s state-controlled corporations (many of which are sanctioned by the US and Europe) and building a positive image for the global market”.

But now the development work for Waves appears to have shifted to the United States and Miami-based Waves Labs.

It announced last month it would transform into Waves 2.0, adding compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine.

Ivanov tweeted last week Waves had no connection to Russian (or any other) government agencies and pinned a plea for peace to his twitter.

As noted by crypto trader @BithelmOfficial, another Russia-linked crypto, the tiny SIBCoin, has been soaring as well.

Sibcoin was up 15.9 per cent to US17.5c this afternoon, and has risen 1,476 per cent in the past fortnight.

A fork of Dash from 2015, SIBCoin is just the No. 1640 crypto with a market cap of just $3 million and is mostly traded on Bittrex.

Bitcoin hits 10-day low

Meanwhile Bitcoin dipped under US$38,000 for the first time in 10 days this afternoon as the crypto markets struggled with geopolitical uncertainty.

BTC dipped as low as US$37,700 around 2pm AEDT, its lowest level since Feburary 25. Hours later it had recovered somewhat, changing hands at $38,100 – still down 3.5 per cent from yesterday.

Ethereum was down 4.4 per cent to US$2,536, and overall the crypto market had fallen 3.9 per cent to $1.78 trillion.

Coingecko

Anchor Protocol was the biggest loser among the top 100, falling 18 per cent after days of strong gains.

Fantom fell 17.8 per cent to $1.37 while Convex Finance was the only other double-digit loser in the top 100, dropping 10.1 per cent to $15.87.