Russia is open to gas payments in gold or Bitcoin. However, the payment method depends on the status of the paying country.
Following the sanctions imposed by the West, Russia has drawn up a list of so-called “unfriendly” countries. The list includes countries that have recently imposed sanctions against Russia, such as the US, the EU, or the UK.
In this context, Russia announced yesterday that payments for gas supplies from “unfriendly” countries will have to be made in rubles in the future. The Russian Central Bank is to present an acceptable method for this within a week, and the gas giant Gazprom is to revise the contracts of the “unfriendly” countries.
Now Russia opens another paid method for “unfriendly” countries.
According to Pavel Zavalny Russian chairman of the Congress Energy Committee, “unfriendly” countries should pay in real money,
“When we exchange with Western countries, they should pay in hard money. And hard money is gold, or they must pay in currencies which are convenient for us, and that is the national currency – ruble. That relates to our ‘unfriendly’ countries.”
For countries friendly with Russia, he also mentioned ways of payment,
“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 a standard practice. If they want Bitcoin, we will trade in Bitcoin.”
Many have warned that the SWIFT system could be used as a weapon. More and more countries will become concerned about the security of their dollar reserves as confidence in the U.S. is essentially shattered. This will lead to countries switching to other means of payment, which could ultimately mean the end of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency.