Putin: Bitcoin, for me, has value
Russian President Vladimir Putin has rocked US finance pundits after hinting that while he considers cryptocurrency to be "crude and underdeveloped", it could "someday" be used in place of the US dollar for international trading.
The Russian president discussed potential use cases for cryptocurrencies in an interview with CNBC on Thursday following a plenary session of the Russian Energy Week forum.
"I believe it has value," Putin told CNBC at the Russian Energy Week event in Moscow on Wednesday when asked if Bitcoin or cryptocurrency can be used in place of the US dollar, "But I don't think it can be used in the oil trade ".
According to interviews with the official Kremlin website, Putin said that private cryptocurrencies "can act as a unit of account" but are "very unstable".
“Cryptocurrency Oil Contracts? It's too early to talk about it. It works to transfer funds from one place to another, but in terms of exchanges, especially when it comes to energy resources, in my opinion it is still premature, ”the president said.
The Russian government has been closely monitoring the cryptocurrency market, Putin said, adding that he believes it is possible that cryptocurrencies could simply become a "means of accumulation" of value.
“Let's see how its market fluctuates. Today is a bit early ”.
Right now, cryptocurrencies are not backed by "nothing yet," Putin said, but when asked if he considers the cryptocurrency holdings of Tesla CEO Elon Musk to be "worthless", Putin said no, explaining which intended to explore the viability of cryptocurrencies as a unit of account for the energy market.
Later in the interview, Putin reiterated his criticisms of how Washington's abuse of dollar dominance amounts to wielding an "economic weapon" and remains eager to abandon dollar-denominated payments.
"I think the United States is making a huge mistake in using the dollar as a sanctioning tool," he said. “We are forced, in this way, to switch to transactions in other currencies”.
"In this regard, we can say that the United States bites the hand that feeds them," added the world leader.
“This dollar is a competitive advantage. It is a universal reserve currency and the United States today uses it to pursue political objectives and consequently damages their strategic and economic interests ”.
"We are not interested in cutting dollar payments completely and so far we are happy with dollar energy payments, mainly oil," he added.
So we are witnessing a China that completely rejects Bitcoin and other virtual currencies, and a Russia that considers them, if nothing else, as a tool to escape the control of the dollar. Surely the Russian vision is more liberal, if we can say so. We will see which of the two will prevail.
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The article Putin: Bitcoin, for me, has a value comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/putin-bitcoin-per-me-ha-un-valore/ on Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:00:17 +0000.