Bitcoin: China, Russia, Iran, the monetary chessboard is moving

The war in Ukraine is turning into a monetary war. China has just announced that it will pay for Russian gas in yuan while Iran legalizes payment for imports in bitcoins.

dollars? No thanks

Russian energy giant Gazprom has signed an agreement with China for its gas deliveries to be settled in yuan as well as in roubles. The goal being to bypass the US dollar, which still represents 59% of foreign exchange reserves and 41% international payments.

Here Vladimir Putin at the 7th Economic Forum in Vladivostok:

“The new payment mechanism is a mutually beneficial, timely, reliable and convenient solution”said Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller following a videoconference meeting with the CEO of Chinese oil group CNPC.

This decision will have serious consequences because everything leads us to believe that the gas that Europe no longer wants will end up being consumed in Asia. Russian gas exports to China have already increased by 60% compared to last year. They were around 10 billion m3. To be compared with the 72 billion m3 delivered to Europe, down 42%.

This abandonment of the dollar is to be compared with the decision of the central bank and the Russian Ministry of Finance to accept cryptocurrencies for international exchanges. However, the Ministry of Finance prefers to promote an international payment system based on stablecoins rather than bitcoin.

According to the Russian state news agency TASS, Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Moiseev will propose a legal framework in this direction. “Stablecoins can be pegged to a generally recognized instrument, e.g. gold, whose value is clear and appreciable by all”did he declare.

China and Russia therefore prefer to capitalize on their huge gold reserves. However, bitcoin is more practical since it is gold at the same time as an international payment network already linked to all the currencies of the world. Two in one.

Nevertheless, let’s bet that Moscow will agree to trade in bitcoins if certain countries so desire. The press agency Tasnim reports that its Iranian ally (which does not have a lot of gold) has just legalized the use of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to pay for imports.

Speaking to reporters at the end of an automotive industry exhibition in Tehran on Sunday, Industry Minister Fatemi Amin unveiled a legal framework for the supply of electricity for the mining of bitcoin and its use for international trade.

The agreement between the Ministry of Industry and the Central Bank of Iran indicates that “imports can now be made in cryptocurrencies instead of US dollars or euros”.

Tasnim points out that the first import order paid for in cryptocurrencies was made on August 9, for $10 million. The head of Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization did not give details regarding the imported merchandise, the country involved or the cryptocurrency used. Our information, however, points to bitcoin…

The global monetary chessboard is in turmoil and bitcoin will sooner or later become a centerpiece of it.

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