Russia is leveraging bitcoin as a means of evading Western sanctions, according to Finance Minister Anton Siluanov. The country’s economy has faced difficulties in making and receiving international payments, particularly with nations like China that don’t use the US dollar as their reserve currency.
The Kremlin recently established an experimental framework for cryptocurrency miners, which allows approved entities to utilize bitcoin for international trade. This move could benefit Russian energy companies by enabling them to sell to a growing domestic market of bitcoin miners.
However, acceptance of bitcoin is not universal and may be limited by individual countries’ laws and pressure from Western financial regulators on domestic banks. As such, the use of bitcoin as a means of evading sanctions presents a challenge for international trade.
The impact on the US dollar’s status as the dominant global reserve currency is a concern for President-elect Trump, who sees bitcoin as a threat to its dominance. In response, he has expressed willingness to impose 100% tariffs on countries that adopt rival currencies or undermine the dollar’s value.
Source: https://www.axios.com/2024/12/25/russia-bitcoin-evade-sanctions-crypto