Taking recent events into consideration, and numerous backlashes as well as sanctions from the West, it can be easily assumed that Russia is considering accepting Bitcoin as a wider mode of payment for both of its oil and gas exports.
According to the chair of Russia’s Duma committee, The Russian government intends on being highly flexible with payment options with friendly countries such as China and Turkey. The chair, Pavel Zavalny had also stated that Russia had previously made efforts in order to switch to settlements in national currencies for both Rubles and Yuan. In addition to this, the same would apply in Turkey’s case- aka Rubles and Lira.
Is Russia now Resorting to the use of Bitcoin?
However, the debate did not simply end over the topic of currencies. He even stated that trading Bitcoin was now possible. Based on Zavalny’s remarks, a spike in the price of bitcoin was seen. In the last 24 hours, an increase of 4%, as roughly the $44,000 mark was seen.
But as long as unfriendly countries are concerned, Vladimir Putin is adamant about ensuring that they pay for gas in Rubles. As a result of this very statement, gas prices soared within Europe, and also led to an increase in tensions that might put an already tense energy market under greater pressure.
The US had responded to Russia’s war on Ukraine by banning the import of Russian oil. But, on the other hand, it is clearly visible that taking such a similar step would not be really possible for Europe as they already have a heavy dependence on Russian energy. It is also worth noting that the Russian government had invested a lot of effort in order to make this transition possible since 2014. Back when it was aiming to make sure it strips all US treasuries.
Vladimir Putin has now considerably changed his stance over Bitcoin. Even when they believed that Bitcoin had great value. He was not fully convinced that it would be able to replace the US dollar in any way possible when it came to settling for oil trades. Moreover, the central bank of Russia and the Government have contrary views about the use and adoption of cryptocurrencies.
Summing it all up, it is still ambiguous if Bitcoin’s lower liquidity rate would be able to support greater international transactions or not. However, Russia’s involvement in BTC and cryptos is a big news for the global crypto community.
