Faced with harsher sanctions from Western countries for its invasion of Ukraine, Russia considers accepting bitcoin as payment for its exports without oil and gas.
At a video conference conference on Thursday, the chairman of Russia’s Duma energy committee said that when it comes to “friendly” countries such as China or Turkey, Russia is determined to be more flexible with payment options.
Chairman Pavel Zavalny said the nation’s consumer fiat currency – as well as bitcoin – was seen as another way to pay for power transfers to Russia.
“We have been proposing in China for a long time to switch to currency exchanges in rubles and yuan,” Zavalny said in a translated comment. “For Turkey, it will be the lira and the rubles.”
He did not give up on traditional money.
“You can also trade bitcoins,” he said.
Bitcoin has risen about 4% in the last 24 hours to about $ 44,000. The price of cryptocurrency rose as Zavalny’s news reports began to skip.
Energy chairman reiterated President Vladimir Putin’s promise on Wednesday to require “unfriendly” countries to pay for gas in Russian rubles. Putin’s announcement has sent European gas prices higher due to concerns that the move could accelerate the already volatile energy market.
“If they want to buy, they have to pay with hard currency, and this is gold for us, or they have to pay the way we deserve it, this is the currency of the country,” Zavalny said, echoing the party’s president’s warning. the day before.
Although the US has banned the importation of Russian oil as part of its response to the Moscow-Ukraine war, sources told that it is unlikely the European Union will follow, given its strong reliance on Russian power, in part to burn homes in the winter. months.
“Russia clearly looks at the diversity of some currencies,” said Nic Carter, founder of Coin Metrics. t Russia had been preparing for that kind of change since 2014, when it began to divide the entire U.S. Treasurys.
“But the country is not yet fully prepared for FX’s foreign assets to be frozen,” said Carter, who is also a co-founder of Castle Island Ventures, a relatively young company that focuses on private equity.
Russia now appears determined to move away from the dollar.
“They have something the world needs,” Carter said. “Russia is the world’s largest producer of natural gas.”
Russia can convert energy reserves into solid assets that can be used without a dollar system.
Putin has changed his song on bitcoin. In 2021, a Russian leader Hadley Gamble that although he believed bitcoin had value, he was not sure it could change the US dollar in resolving the oil trade. Now, the Kremlin high brass is rated as a way to pay for exports. However, it is not clear whether the bitcoin shortage of liquidity may support international trade transactions of that magnitude.