Cryptocurrency can be a means of settlement, but using it as payment for oil is premature. This was stated by Russian President Vladimir Putin in a CNBC interview.
In response to the question of when settlements under contracts for oil deliveries would be conducted not in dollars, but, for example, in cryptocurrency, Putin said that it’s too early to talk about that:
“Cryptocurrency, of course, can be a unit of settlement, but it is very unstable. To move funds from one place to another, yes, but to trade, especially to trade in energy resources, in my view, this is still premature.”
He noted that Bitcoin has a right to exist, despite the fact that it is “not yet backed by anything.” At the same time, Putin does not think that cryptocurrency is worthless:
“Why not? It has value. It’s just a question of whether it can be used as a settlement unit in the buying and selling of oil. That’s what I am saying.”
The president suggested that in the future Bitcoin could also be used as a store of value.
He also noted that to create cryptocurrencies a large amount of energy is required:
“To do this, one must use, for the time being, traditional energy sources, and above all hydrocarbons.”
According to the Russian Law ‘On Digital Financial Assets’, cryptocurrencies are defined as property and are prohibited from being used to pay for goods and services within the country.
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