Russia is fine with accepting Bitcoin in return for natural gas

Russia has recently indicated that it is open to accepting Bitcoin for the exports of its natural resources amid the Central Bank’s tough stance over digital assets.

Russia is fine with Bitcoin

On Thursday, while speaking at a press conference, Pavel Zavalny, the chairman of the Congressional energy committee of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, said that Russia has no problem in accepting different methods of payment for its exports, beginning with natural gas. However, he went on to add that the terms will depend on the importing party’s foreign relations status with Russia.

Zavalny said, “when it comes to our ‘friendly’ countries, like China or Turkey, which don’t pressure us, then we have been offering them for a while to switch payments to national currencies, like rubles and yuan. With Turkey, it can be lira and rubles. So there can be a variety of currencies, and that’s standard practice. If they want bitcoin, we will trade in bitcoin.”

The statements by Zavalny come shortly after the president of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin on March 23 announced that the government has decided to sell gas to “unfriendly” countries only for Russian rubles. Putin’s demand was clear how Russia would work with existing contracts agreed upon euros.

Putin goes with flow

Russia’s willingness to accept bitcoin is a significant change from last year when Putin denied the prospect in an appearance at the Russian Energy Week conference in Moscow.

Putin said at that time:

“I believe that it [Bitcoin] has value, but I don’t believe it can be used in the oil trade.”

The current market size and liquidity of Bitcoin raises doubts about whether the peer-to-peer currency can be widely employed in international trade at this time.

However, by being open to the idea and eventually executing pilot trades with interested parties, Russia might pave the way for a future trend in which countries choose to operate in a stateless, global monetary system.