The Russian Federation's energy chief, Pavel Zavalny, has raised the possibility of accepting Bitcoin as payment for his oil and gas from "friendly countries" such as China and Turkey.
He said those countries could start paying for energy in Russian rubles, Chinese yuan, Turkish lira, or even Bitcoin (BTC) โ instead of the international standard American dollar.
According to Russian media Red blood cellsChairman of the State Duma Energy Committee Zavalny told a press conference on March 24 that he and representatives of China and Turkey have been discussing changes to the preferred settlement currencies for their biggest export.
โWe have been proposing to China for a long time to switch to settlements in national currencies of rubles and yuan. With Turkey, it will be lira and rubles. The set of currencies may be different, and this is normal practice. If there are Bitcoins, we will trade Bitcoins.โ
In addition, he stated that "hostile countries" could pay for their oil in rubles or gold. However, it is not clear whether Russia can change the terms of existing contracts with countries that pay in euros or dollars.
Explosive.
Russia now demands that Europe pay for gas in rubles.
Europe gets 40% of its gas from Russia. That is 200-800 million euros per day.
Putin is basically saying: do you want to play sanctions? Pay in rubles or freeze.
โRichard Medhurst (@richimedhurst) March 23, 2022
Russia has been exploring ways in which it can circumvent international economic sanctions levied against him for invading Ukraine. Russian banks have been removed from the SWIFT system to prevent them from settling cross-border payments, and most companies have been forbidden to deal with Russia, except for the oil and gas trade.
Energy is the most important commodity that Russia exports, and it is a key energy source in Europe and other countries that it is difficult for them to replace. According to Reutersoil and gas trade provided $119 billion in revenue for Russia in 2021.
Including electricity, kerosene, coal and natural gas, energy trade accounted for 53.8% of Russia's total $388.4 billion in exports in 2021 according to Briefing on Russia.
The crypto market seems to have reacted positively to the news of an expanded international use case for BTC. Bitcoin is up 2.5% over the past day and is now nearing 30-day highs trading at $43,917 according to CoinGecko.
Related: Terra Bitcoin Buying and BlackRock Comments Support ETH Rise to $3.1K
CEO Larry Fink of Blackrock, the world's largest asset manager, may be seeing his prediction of a new digital payment system come true before his eyes. Fink wrote in a March 24 letter to shareholders that global political instability could pave the way for nations adopt digital currencies as tools of international settlement.
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