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The bitcoin price has surged over the last week as Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell prime the market for a September bombshell (though China could blow the Fed out of the water).
Now, after the price of Telegram-linked bitcoin rival toncoin suddenly crashed, Russia has been revealed to be gearing up to begin testing bitcoin and crypto exchanges to help ease the flow of cross-border transactions that have been crippled by U.S.-led international sanctions.
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Russia’s president Vladimir Putin has warmed up to bitcoin and crypto this year as the bitcoin price … [+]
The bitcoin and crypto trials will start on September 1, it was reported by Bloombergciting two anonymous sources in an un-bylined piece. The country’s National Payment Card System will be used to swap rubles and cryptocurrencies when testing payments on the exchange platform, the sources said.
The trial comes as Russia’s businesses are struggling to pay overseas suppliers and to get paid for exported commodities after the U.S. in June cracked down on foreign banks working with Russia, with many China banks since halting yuan payments.
Russia had already been cut off from the U.S. dollar-based Western financial system after it lost access to the Swift international banking system in 2022.
Russia could then give the green light to the Moscow Exchange and the St. Petersburg Currency Exchange to create their own crypto platforms next year, the anonymous sources said.
Russia’s burgeoning support for bitcoin and crypto comes as the technology has been embraced by former U.S. president and 2024 White House hopeful Donald Trump, who has promised to create a bitcoin strategic reserve if he’s reelected in November.
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The bitcoin price has surged this year, climbing as Wall Street piles into bitcoin and crypto.
Earlier this month, Russia’s finance minister Anton Siluanov said Russia is trying to find a way to allow international crypto exchanges to operate in the country but hasn’t “found a solution yet on how to do this,” according to the state-run Tass news agency.
Russia’s parliament passed bills legalizing crypto mining and a framework to allow the testing of digital tokens for cross-border payments under supervision by the central bank in July, with president Vladimir Putin signing the bills into law on August 8.
Russia’s adoption of crypto for practical purposes comes after the Kremlin proposed a blanket crypto ban in 2022.