Bitcoin Forum

Due to US sanctions , Russia may well start to invest its reserves in Bitcoin. Ive heard this rumour for months, but it looks more and more logical and likely.

https://toshitimes.com/russia-plans-to-replace-u-s-dollar-with-bitcoin/

This article sums it up pretty well and if it does become true, it will surely bring a very strong bullish trend .

I think the U.S. sanction has something to do with Russia getting involved with funding Venezuela. They have started diversifying it's assets and of their choices is bitcoin. It seems that numbers of countries are starting to move away from depending on U.S. dollar and fining alternatives, and starting to consider bitcoin as one of it.

This will have a huge impact on not just bitcoin but also the whole crypto market.

If, only if it happens then we will definitely see a very bullish price trend for bitcoin but it's still at a specualtion mode and the article only says, what will happen if Russia starts replacing their USD reserve with bitcoin! It's least likely to happen!

Russia is ruled by strict communist laws and kept themselves in a very secretive way! The only sideline chance is their ongoing issues with US but it's not so big that they will have to take such drastic step! Don't bank high on this!

I don't think that we'll gain anything by posting fake news. All it can do is to tarnish the reputation of this forum and that of crypo-currency in general. It is true that Russia is selling the US treasury bonds in its possession. They are selling the bonds and purchasing bullion and other assets. But there is no indication that they are even remotely interested in crypto.

I'm not sure what to make of the above quote from the aritcle.  There are enough weasel words in there that it seems to belong in a zoo, or deep in the forest at best. 

Wouldn't surprise me, though.  US-Russia relations have been historically tense, and I don't doubt that Russia would be looking for something other than the USD to keep as a stable currency.  But bitcoin?  I do have doubts as to whether those two currencies are interchangeable, and I'm wondering whether there needs to be an "either-or" mentality on Russia's part.  It might make more sense to hold both.  But in any case, a big world power like Russia holding bitcoin as a reserve currency would be huge news--IF it were true.  This could be nothing more than rumor and hype.

If they were going to do it, they wouldn't announce it in advance. That would just spike the price.

Also: there arn't enough circulating bitcoins to meet any country's reserves, and certainly not enough to replace the dollar.

They may hold a small reserve of bitcoins so they can move money to their client states without attracting attention from the Americans, but they won't hold much. It's easier for them to hold gold, not least because there is a lot of gold available to hold as a reserve.

Its logical to find an alternative and not depend on USD. If the future says crypto is getting much attention, it shall be considered an alternative not just for the Russia. They'd rather be looking into it than dependent to whatever is on the table. Fake or not. Look into where this market is going, it just can't be this way for the rest of its existence.

It’s certainly no argument that this is mere speculation like a lot of the posters on this shred believe, myself too. But it is strange that I’ve heard this at least 3 times in the last few weeks, and as they say “ There’s no smoke without fire” .
If the Russian government even just dip their toe in the Bitcoin market, it will cause waves.

The US government have been unfriendly with cryptocurrency and that have been seen with the suspension of trading in some exchanges tokens and that is an attack on the adoption of cryptocurrency and Russia being a cryptocurrency friendly region will have to adopt cryptocurrency and looking away from the US dollars and optioning in to alternative asset.

It's one geezer who's been dribbling the same shit for months with zero sign of it being true.

Every country that is not the US would probably love to get one over on the US so there are a mountain of conventional options before they even dream of BTC, and they're not dreaming that in the slightest.

That plan is too good for Bitcoin. But I don't know if it's really a good plan or not from Russian government perspective. When it becomes a real decision, it would push Bitcoin value to the next level I'm pretty sure. But, currently Bitcoin is a high risk asset and I think this plan would take a long time before really taken as a decision.

I truly don't think that Russia is going to take their USD holdings and put it into Bitcoin. As much as we may wish for it to happen, Russia has not been friendly to cryptos and I can't see the trend reversing anytime soon. In addition to that, Bitcoin would be far too volatile of an asset for the Russians to willingly hold for long periods of time. Chances are they're going to buy commodities from other sanctioned states like Venezuela and "avoid" the sanctions that way. I don't think a sudden investment of Russian money into Bitcoin is logical or likely. There probably won't be any new bullish trend in the near future aside from what we were already experiencing.

Some no-name says that in his mind it makes sense for Russia to invest in Bitcoin, and suddenly people start treating it as actual news, despite the fact there is absolutely zero actual action happening right now. We all hate it when someone spews baseless FUD, but baseless moon/FOMO is just as bad, it creates false expectations that may lead to only short-term boost, which will be followed by a quick and painful drop when the realization that it all was fake finally comes.

Wont trust it for a bit on thoughts alone, lets wait first until russia openly supports it. Would be nice to see putin say he supports Bitcoin do. ; )

LOL, do you actually believed that Russia will go full crypto nuts? They even can't decide and impose proper regulations about crypto.  ;D. I've been calling for Russia in the last two years are anti-bitcoin, so I don't understand articles popping up once in a while and try to picture them as something very friendly to crypto. They could actually investing on assets like Gold and other precious metals, but crypto just to circumvent the US sanctions? Nah, Putin is intelligent not to put their reserves in Bitcoin.

It is quite logical that the permanent confrontation between Russia and the United States, the permanent sanctions against Russia, force the latter to look for an alternative to the dollar as a means of payment. If the choice is made in favor of Bitcoin, then this will probably give a new impetus to the development of the crypt, not only in Russia, but also on a global scale.

Yes maybe the US sanction forcing them to find a new way to store money, but i also don't think they will totally replace the USD with bitcoin and only use bitcoin, but maybe they will only use some bitcoins and if this happen the price can grow.

Russia will repeat what they have done in the past which is store large amounts of foreign reserves in gold or similar commodity worth.    For the last 10 years both Russia and China have had a very strong bias towards gold over other holdings such as US dollar bonds.     Russia already had some gold and China mostly had no gold at all however its become both the worlds largest importer and producer of gold and also has a stake in gold mining operations outside its borders via its command economy

I think Russia is more positive then previous on crypto but I dont think they store any public funds in BTC.   I believe they might have secondary operations involved in crypto operated by friends of the state as it were but to say they will hold reserves in BTC instead of dollar I think is not correct.   Any large player being involved like that would be on the front newspaper globally and it would be very noticeable, 3rd party companies maybe

Just an assumption and believe this news is no reason. I would not invest in crypto in the hope of growth based on this news.

I agree. I am observing more and more of these threads popping up these days which explain how BTC will replace FIAT completely which I honestly find laughable since BTC was always intended to serve as an alternate payment option and nothing more.

I know that more and more people want to see BTC adoption grow, but fake news won't help in any manner.

It can't be logical until Bitcoin becomes stable. All those monetary reserves are first of all made to save the money and not to get any profits out of it. So bitcoin can't be reserve currency for such a big country like Russi then first it should become stable  to secure the financial safety of the country and then it should have enough liquidity to make it possible to use this money. For this time we don't even have enough liquidity for that.

Well, I still believe they are stocking up on gold rather than Bitcoin. But because the Russian government is friendly with crypto, I will not be surprised they had been stocking up on Bitcoin or even Ethereum too because of Vitalik.

When the time will come Bitcoin can be replacing many countries' reserve currency then it can definitely be making big impact to its price and perceived value as it can finally start playing like the functioning digital gold. However, getting there can be a not walk-in-the-park kind of thing as there will always be those who are not convinced of the value of Bitcoin. I am then hoping that soon Russia can be announcing this as an official decision. But I am hoping that USA will not retaliate by strictly regulating Bitcoin in its territory.

There are serious risks with the industry but we can agree  that there are advantages as well to the new technology

this is very great news, I salute the Russian government, if it's true they did it there. I understand that Russia has calculated it carefully because they have legalized crypto currency first.

One must know that what you said are the basics of how an economy makes money. They can't probably trust bitcoin that big to use it as a reserve currency for a country powerful as them as that can tantamount to fearmongers and FUDs in the cryptomarket and also in the economics world. The liquidity is one of the few things they should consider as this can be a great thing or a disaster in the making.


The adoption process might progress more but we will never know since the market's stability is one of the things people took note of the cryptocurrency market. Either way, they could be scheming something out of it.

Countries will never get into such a form of backing a country's economy with bitcoin. As the market of bitcoin is highly volatile, it'll affect the economic situation prevailing within the country. As USD has got stable value it is preferred to be the prime backing asset. Maybe when bitcoin gets used same as fiat such a backing process might come to reality.

This is 4 months old article from to me completely unknown site, which is obviously posting clickbait articles in order to make money from advertisement. That high-profile Russian economist is also unknown, although I doubt it even exists. In fact the whole story about the possible Russia investment in bitcoin is due to sanctions imposed by the US&EU, but it is not any secret that Russia is buying gold and maybe even working on their own cryptocurrency.

Chances that they will start buying bitcoin in large quantities are not realistic, and if this happens it will not be published in some low quality site.

Exactly, this is probably some fake news. People easily beleive anything these days. No country and especialy not Russia would accept such high risk for back up in Bitcoin and that sompley makes no sense. Not for a moment I didn't beleive that this is credible and trustworthy news.

A lot of alternatives to USD exists as of now, and crypto doesn't rank among the top 10. And it is beyond stupidity to say that Russia would sell its remaining forex reserves to accumulate an asset, which has lost 85% of its value during the last 15 months. We need to be realistic and remain patient. Else, the crypto community will become the laughing stock in front of the rest of the world.

Yeah, in order to avoid sanctions, Russia will use bitcoins...
Logic....zero.

Sanctions don't work the way people imagine.
In order to avoid sanctions, you need a 3rd party that doesn't give a damn about the consequences, you don't need to avoid the $, you just need to have a trading partner who doesn't care about what the US says.

Now, using logic, what is easier to find, a trading partner that would take BTC or one that will deal in $?
Just look at Iran who is every day talking about how bad America is, how the $ will fall and how it has plans to replace it but in reality, more than 80% of the deals it has for oil are in $.


China has 80$ billions in gold, at the same time it imports every year goods for 1.8 trillion, that is around 150 billion a month.
How do you see that working out?


You mean going bankrupt 3 times in less than 30 years?



If you're an export of raw materials that are right now experiencing a period of oversaturation such as oil and gas you're in no position to demand how payments are done. You simply comply with the buyer or the buyer will look elsewhere.
So, at this point Russia has only one option, take the so much needed $ and euros and shut up!

This is from TASS the news company owned and run by the Kremlin:
Russian millionaires keep about 70% of their savings in foreign banks, study says (http://tass.com/economy/1028737)
Why do you think that happens?
Russians convert their savings to dollars and euros
 (http://tass.com/opinions/763193)

Russia has invested more than ten billion dollars in Venezuela, of which about 7.5 billion dollars in oil production in this country. Therefore, it is trying with all its forces, including military means, to support the ruling regime of Maduro.
It is possible that in order to evade international sanctions, Russia will invest in Bitcoins and other cryptocurrency. This has been said for a long time. However, the Putin regime will do this in an environment of high secrecy. It seems that we still will not find out about it from open sources.

I dont believe in the news article in the OP above. It is just mere speculation and assumptions. Well, crypto is full of speculations and we can  only hope and expect the best to happen.

If this would happen, supply for Bitcoin will be sucked by the Russian reserves and making the price unaffordable for low profile investors. I don't think this could ever happen in our present times though.

No such thing as not affordable because it's based on supply and demand, investors will invest if they believe demand could increase.
If they will buy a huge volume of bitcoin, then good for us here since we are early investors, that would also help the market to recover, but then again, it's just an article, let's just take it lightly.

While I'm not fond of Russia (supported Trump due to the lack of a better libertarian candidate), this is kind of interesting. First time I've seen a whole country put massive investments in Bitcoin, let alone any altcoin. Neat.

Its too risky. It is better for russia to invest its reserve in gold which is more stable and stronger. By the way any cpuntry need USD to buy oil that mined by Saudi Arabia so every countru needs USD. This is unfair, isn't?. But if russia may well start to invest its reserve in bitcoin then the price of bitcoin could reach 100.000 usd .

If you know the secret decision these people make internally and execute without the knowledge of people, it will shock you; don’t be surprised that they have already done the investment.

I also read somewhere recently on this forum as regards this matter, about them planning to buy cryptocurrency that is worth 10 billion dollars, and that was towards the beginning of this year, is there still any explanation yet as to the jump in price of BTC that moment? I am not completely saying that they are the ones that moved the market then, but we cannot completely override the possibility.

Strange news to me I read one article here in Bitcoin  I just don't remember the title, that the Russian hates Bitcoin, so why the bug turn around, if it happens this would be one of the biggest news this year, so we need to start holding as many Bitcoin of our own, as the Russians are coming for a big pump.

I think it's a fake news, Russia won't do that, they are not going to replace the USD with bitcoin in their reserve. What Putin said was that "they will have to find a way around the USD when doing business because of the US sanctions" this will even be limited to very few Russian sector and not even all sectors. They may agree with transact some business with a country like China without using the USD.

I agree with you on this, they might not really make it a reserve since the market is still very volatile and quite risky, but at the other hand, it is a game of luck, it will favor them more if they do so now that the market is just recovering, imagine that they put part of their reserve in BTC now, let’s say 10 billion dollars, and BTC multiplies by 10x tomorrow, it means their reserve would have become 100 billion dollars. We can see that bitcoin has indirectly solved their economy crises without them knowing.

I am sure they would have explored this option with the help of experts and will look for the right time to come in; those are part of the reason why I believe that the bull  run of BTC is very close by.

Even if they do I don't think that they'll be there to hodl Bitcoin in the long term but just to pump and dump. Obviously with their big money moving in they themselves know that they have the ability to influence the prices and the also know that the market confidence decreases quickly once Bitcoin reaches to a certain point. They'll be smart to do so since even if they have a big influence in the market Bitcoin still is a volatile cryptocurrency to hodl like a fiat currency.

I don't know if it will be a smart move or not. Having a lot of bitcoin on your reserves is a great idea and I totally support it but having zero dollars in your reserves is not a smart idea. Can't they find a way to do that both at the same time? Like maybe exchange some of your dollars (not all, maybe 20% at most) to bitcoin and buying more with your own fiat (what was Russian fiat? ruble?) and changing some euros, sterling and other stuff as well (maybe even Chinese yuan) to bitcoin as well.

So, if you combine all of your reserves to get more bitcoin you will both have a lot of bitcoin on your reserves but still have a ton of fiat currency as well. It just makes much more sense right now to do that. I know it wouldn't send a political message but would be smart economically.

It's just an old rumor which at the end is not true. Also, remember the country is anti crypto. In opposite, Russia is replacing USD with gold, not Bitcoin, it bough for 46 trillion last year

edit:
@stompix
Sorry, I confused trillions with billions. And also just to add. Russia bought over 600 tons of gold since 2015... just 3-4 years...

I really doubt it.
Not with an overall federal budget of 200 billion$.
Their entire gold reserve is valued at 80 billion$ and last year they've bought something around 9 billion$.



Yeah...too bad that when you try to sell 1 billion worth of it it will drop the price at half of what you bought for :PPP
Look at the graphs and see what a 1-2 million worth of BTC dumped on the market is doing to the price and multiply it by 1000.

Looks like a fake one.

But, it could happen. We can speculate for now and maybe a time will come that it might end up into how we want it.
Russia is not in a good looks with what is US doing all over the world.
Well, who is not? They are creating war because of their main product which is weaponry.

Let us not just post this kind of links though, better read thoroughly. You could see some sentences that cannot be understood.

do you think russia is in position to do that? and if it be, well, it will be a great welcome development foir bitcoin and crypto currency at large, that is a proof of russia launching crypto into the future and with that, some other countries may imbibe it.

That would be interesting to see from Russia, especially it would be interesting what will do other countries after Russia investing in Bitcoin. Maybe other countries will follow same path and Bitcoin becomes trully digital gold. I heard rumour that Russian oligarchs which are one of the richest people in Russia are heavly investing into Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but I did not see their wallets and I do not know is that really true.

I dont think Russia is anti crypto at least not like it was initially, its technology and some valid business but they are anti anything not under their control so not exactly in favour of BTC usage I guess.   I just see them as nationalist and protective of their currency, commodity and trade.    Gold is their preference as its more global then what US dollar and world reserve FIAT forex has become, with its strong bias to Washington DC

at this time we must be more careful about responding to a news, because we all have heard the news that Russia is clearly outright rejection of Bitcoin. but whatever it is I'm still waiting for official statements from Russia about this news from more trusted official media such as BBC media or others.

I think yuan would be much better for Russia if you think about it. Russia used to be a fully communist country and to say that they became democracy would be ignorant, they are still ruled with an iron fist on Putins orders and they still have a lot of communist propaganda and like it very much, they are very much against capitalism.

Even in Ukraine which is probably Russians biggest enemy capitalism is not fully emerged yet. So, china while fighting against USA economically could very much love the help from Russia to increase the value of Chinese yuan against dollars, if Russia ends up with buying yuan with all their dollars that would make yuan more valuable and make dollar lose value. That could both help Russia with sanctions via China and help China get stronger against USA.

Some wealthy russians are reportedly bought a significant amount of bitcoin but the Russian government has nothing to do with it. The Russian government have been known to be anti bitcoin and some of their leaders are advocating strict regulation against the use of cryptocurrency. So it is impossible for the Russian government to buy bitcoin to become their reserve instead of USD.

I agree. This is just another piece of fake news. For sure Russia is home to a large number of Bitcoin users. A number of exchanges and other crypto-related businesses are based in Russia. But the government has adopted a somewhat hostile stance towards the crypto-currency. I can understand the reason, and therefore I won't blame the government. The Russian Ruble has lost almost 60% of its value since 2014, and the government is afraid that people will use BTC as a tool to protect their wealth.

An economist I will know that it will be impossible, government cannot place the whole system of the country in a system that is still being developed, I don’t doubt the fact that they would have been smarter than other countries to quickly take advantage of bitcoin to make more money in preparation for the upcoming recession.

The step they can take since they believe in the system is to take part of the reserve to also invest in order to multiply it. If you look at the money stated by op, it is too small to be the whole reserve of Russia, if they even lose that money; it will not have that much impact on the economy.

Very interesting news.
It will be a totally good sign for our community and the cryptocurrency industry but I wonder how much instability is going to be created around the world.
I can see that these games between Russia and the US are very dangerous that can cause irreparable damage to the world economy.

Bitcoin will never be stable.Russia will not invest the money in bitcoin.This is contrary to the country's strategy.Yes this year will be tested in some areas the use of new technologies including cryptocurrencies.But I think it is not necessary to associate this event with the purchase of a large number of bitcoins.As far as I know, Russia as of 2014 has become the largest buyer of gold but not bitcoin.Although to ignore this news is so not worth it.We don't know what's going on in the corridors of power.

Stable enough is good enough. What currency or asset in the world is stable? It's all relative in the end. 10% Bitcoin down movement = $10 billion. 1% gold down movement = $75 billion. Who suffers more from the volatility?

I don't think anyone here has even a slight clue about what Russia's 'strategy' really is. Almost everything you see in the news and read about is propaganda. Russia has its own agenda, and they will do whatever they think is necessary.

If secretly buying Bitcoin is part of that, they will. If secretly buying more gold is part of that, they will. I prefer to wait for actual events to take place because actions speak louder than words

Too many speculations but no one can predict how bitcoin can be really used as a reserve by one powerful country like Russia, if the future is on digital money which is the cryptocurrency then we cant deny that it will happen in the future just like when btc is in its first year no one predicted that this market will worth billion dollars.   

Most people there do not know about Bitcoin, and it will be very weird IF the country decides to refuse USD and turn to cryptocurrencies. However, they are thinking about their national crypto.

well a lot of articles that tell support for bitcoin started to emerge and with this I think it will indeed give a good influence on bitcoin price movements because more and more traders will be affected to buy bitcoin.

https://i.imgur.com/afwIoXB.png

Do not believe this bullshit, how many times have we heard things like these coming from Russia? This:

Russia: Central Bank Suggests Limiting Sale of Crypto Assets for ‘Unqualified Investors’ (https://cointelegraph.com/news/russia-central-bank-suggests-limiting-sale-of-crypto-assets-for-unqualified-investors)

shows clearly that russia will not use bitcoin. so stop believing these bullshit that a country with dark politics like russia will accept bitcoin

Russia: Financial Markets Committee Considers Requiring Identification From Crypto Users (https://cointelegraph.com/news/russia-financial-markets-committee-considers-requiring-identification-from-crypto-users)

Russian Minister of Justice: Cryptocurrency Doesn’t Yet Need to Be Legally Defined (https://cointelegraph.com/news/russian-minister-of-justice-cryptocurrency-doesnt-yet-need-to-be-legally-defined)

I don't really know how true that can be but I have seen it once on The Telegrah UK. It say that the Russian government is preparing a $10 billion investment in bitcoin. Lol,  I'm wondering how this is going to turn out. So since bitcoin as we all know it is something very volatile, are they going to invest in it and once the price starts to drop they withdraw the money to another kind of asset or what? Cause I'm sure that once that kind of amount jumps into cryptocurrency there is going to be a bull run for sure,  $10 billion is not a small amount of money,  so the price of BTC is going up for sure if such a thing happens.

I doubt Russia will openly invest in bitcoin, and they are probably not investing in it at this time. We do know Russia is investing heavily into gold to diversify away from the U.S. dollar. Also, it's entirely possible that Russian oligarchs are accumulating massive amounts of bitcoin at this time. Perhaps as bitcoin gains greater legitimacy in the future Russia will use it as a means of bypassing sanctions.

Lol which country doesn't want to be better than US? but you still have a good idea, maybe they should invest the money in Chinese yuan. But nobody is sure about this news yet, you know how the media works,  they can fabricate news at anytime and start to spread it even when they don't have solid proof on what they are talking about.

All they do is just to stay relevant. And one thing for sure is that they didn't just wake up and decide that they are going to invest the money in Bitcoin, if it's true, they must have discussed it over a lot of times before coming to the conclusion that bitcoin is a better go for them.

Such rumours really make a vast contribution in the growth of bitcoins but until they arrive from a trusted source there always is silence in the markets. In these markets where most of the governments are banning cryptocurrencies it is really difficult to accept that china is preparing to invest their reserves into bitcoins. But if ever this is a confirmed news, then I am sure a lot of big whales will seriously fill their pockets as soon as possible which will show a huge price in the history of bitcoins.

Peoples like me always rely on such hopes and try investing into dips. If ever Russia shows such growth in bitcoins than most of the other friendly countries may also start going for it which may pump the price multiple times.

For the fact that they have invested in Gold does not mean that they will not also invest in Bitcoin, you think government will keep all their eggs in 1 basket? They might have gold reserve and still have bitcoin reserve.

Between Bitcoin and Gold, which one do you think will be easier for them to sell and easily sold, it will be bitcoin, even digital gold does not sell fast as much as bitcoin sells globally, I am not supporting op’s claim 100% because it can’t be possible, but I can guarantee that Russia will definitely have invested in bitcoin too to secure the future in case of recession.

Only rumors, don't take it too seriously

These type of rumours always passes on and also most of the peoples buy bitcoins hearing such news. We can't really assume that this is a fake news until it is been declared from any of the official source. Russia is a developing nation which has already shown huge growth in terms of security, finances, etc so expecting something similar from them can be expected by the community.

This might not surely be a news which would be relied upon. Also not only Russia but also most of other countries are not showing good enough growth towards expecting cryptocurrencies into day-to-day transactions. We can always have faith and expect something good coming towards us.

They all have their covert operations, and so long they have not legalized bitcoin, they will never openly declare their intention to do so, but that does not mean that they are not investing or trading with it underground.

If government can trade forex and also invest in GOLD with little volatility, now that they have got the chance to make enough money through BTC volatility, they will sure do it using experts, and where will they get the money they are using from if not from the reserve, so it is possible someone somewhere got exposed to the secret which they will deny.

Russia government is crypto friendly they are forming crypto law in the coming future that doesn't mean they change their country reserve to bitcoin i strongly belive it is false news

Dollar surges for sure but the amount of profit is not even comparable to the profit they could get from Bitcoins also at the same time if they are thinking about investing in Bitcoins then it will be backed by a pretty big bear therefore it could prove profitable for not only them but for all of us.

Exceptionally if the market goes down again now then I think they will run away and won't think about investing again because no one want that volatile stocks , then again we just hope for the best but it might take them a while to make that happen because it's about a big governmental issue not something that's small.

The Russian government is not that friendly to the cryptos. If you remember, BTC-e (which was set up by two Moscow-based Russian IT experts) was forced to shift their operations out of that country due to harassment from the authorities. Things have improved a bit, but still it is not that easy to set up a bitcoin-based business in Russia.

Now coming to the Toshi Times, it is just another third rate media outlet, which prints fake news in order to get free publicity and revenue. You can find a number of such outlets here, and none of them have any credibility or honour.

Dude, it's fake news and it has been said several times, read the conversation, Russia won't replace anything with Bitcoin, the country isn't so crazy. The sum of profits, as you say, could also turn to be a loss for the country, which could result in a nightmare for the country's economy, investing is not done with free money. Governments aren't "designed" to invest in the crypto market.

I think so too, Russia will not take the reckless steps to directly replace the dollar with bitcoin, of course they put on their respective parts so that everything is profitable. and I think for now the ones who dare to change with bitcoin are only countries with acute crisis

The Russian government has long shown interest in cryptocurrency in connection with circumventing international sanctions. Therefore, it was Russian specialists who, on the instructions of Putin, helped the President of Venezuela Maduro to create their centralized cryptocurrency El-Petro precisely in order to avoid international sanctions. Therefore, it is likely that they will learn from the experience of Venezuela. However, we see that they do not create their cryptocurrency so far, this would attract too much public attention. Therefore, most likely, they will buy Bitcoin or another decentralized cryptocurrency. As always, they will act in secret and if they are exposed to this, they will traditionally declare that it is not they and they did not do this and in general they were not there.

Russia can buy Bitcoins or another cryptocurrency only in order to circumvent international sanctions. Therefore, the government will do it or does it in secret, and this fact will be denied to direct questions in public.
You already see that, in general, Russia is trying to ban free circulation of cryptocurrency for its citizens. There will ignore the views of citizens and this is a sign of authoritarianism as a form of government by society.

Of course this is fake news, dollar reserve is very important for any country, as it's a stable currency that supply the country in crisis times. With bitcoin the country would become too vulnerable to foreigner intervention (sabotage), especially Russia, which is one of the most influent countries in the world.
Other people hodling large btc funds could just dump the market to affect that country storing their reserves in bitcoin.

Although I think every country should store some btcs (or even cities, villages administrations), but not their entire budget or reserve.

I don't understand the purpose in posting such fake news. I am afraid that it will not do any good for the cause of crypto-currency. Considering the decentralized nature of Bitcoin, it will be very difficult to get the backing of the governments and the Russian government is no exception to this. But why we need them, when we can thrive without the government help?

Actually I believe there are lots of countries who accumulate btc. They just don't want us to know. Crypto will be the future of world currencies. This is for sure.

I thought Putin was going to make a Ruble that is blockchain based.

they will take advantage of the silence. but it may be true not only Russia, and of course they are preparing a big plan to increase the country's prosperity. we can see later, which country is right to carry out its strategy

https://toshitimes.com/russia-plans-to-replace-u-s-dollar-with-bitcoin/

Who?

This article is an example of bad journalism in cryptocurrency's media. This story has no basis, only a rumor, and speculation. If the motivation behind this article is to give positive hype to buy BTC, then it is a success! :) Nice!

News are mostly full of speculations, rarely I see some good article in any cryptocurrency oriented news. I transferred my attention on twitter mostly, steemit a very often, telegram. Many times I see it first on twitter, than I see article where they quote people from twitter (its what journalism is about now). I follow many people who have good influence in crypto community, they are better informed than many crypto news.

not all on social media are legit  . those popular personalities that you are following are only controlled by a fan or its only a dummy account  .  news are still a better source for information but as long as you are reading the news on a reputable source  and not only on just random news sites that are not popular or dont have a reputation yet  . anyway , back on the origial topic  .  its nice to hear that russia is now starting a cashless society    , before im saying that its not possible but it is really possible after i see this  .

Well that exchange once out of Russia washed tons for MtGox Bitcoins and is closed now and owners in prison. So you can imagine why they were pushed out of Russia. They probably break laws in past also.

I believe this is one of the reasons this article is published. Probably paid to increase some inflows to the current market situation. Some kind of a money maker that wants some nice profit out of a very short rally of cryptocurrency prices.

Do you have any proof for this? The forex reserves are regularly audited and the details are published by almost all of the central banks around the world (obviously there are exceptions such as China). In case some country is accumulating Bitcoin, then it is very hard to keep it as a secret. In one way or another, the press will come to know about it.

Russia has a ruler who is actually very clever and intelligent, some part of his money inflows or all his money may not leave him in the hands of bitcoin, because volatility is one of the reasons for Non-Trust on the part of all the governments and the banking in the world, maybe it is considering a part of the money to leave it in bitcoin because it knows that if in a given moment the bitcoin will begin to rise and put in bullish tendency, according to the phases of the market we are in the phase of accumulation where it is ideal to buy and to sell would be ideal to do it in the distribution phase, maybe, they are thinking about that possibility.

But being a government that has many specialists in the economic, not everything should be left in Bitcoin, there must be other investments, gold represents much more confidence and provide security and a great support based on liquidity, more than the bitcoin I think governments and banking every day increase their investments in gold, also can take refuge there in the face of a possible global crash of the economy, which is a scenario that every government in the world has raised and do not want to stay with their hands empty.

No ones talking about, but I honestly think Russia caused this pump....remember in January we heard they were going to start buying up Billions of Bitcoin in the spring? Well look what happened, Russia has $450 Billion in reserves that they had to spend because the sanctions were making it difficult, lets face it, they bought Bitcoin, a ton of Bitcoin.

Its not a coincidence, the rumors were just true, people labeled them fake because they didn't think it would be so public, well it was true.

It is possible they change it entirely in future when the cryptocurrency system has been fully established and accepted but not at this early stage. One thing I am really certain of is that we have some smart countries that are using bitcoin to increase their reserve, which will be the wisest thing to do now that some government are not yet in the loop.

Imagine Russian government using 5 million dollars from their reserve to buy bitcoin when it was $5000, which means that within this short increase, they would have increased their reserve with about 2 million dollars extra without much stress. Do you know what project that will solve in their country?

Yes, I have also heard the news, that the Russian government will buy a lot of Bitcoin to replace their USD reserves, so if the price of Bitcoin today increases, I think that's because Russia buys Bitcoin with a lot.

I agree, if any powerful country was really accumulating bitcoin then the price should be many times higher than what we are seeing now since countries have an unlimited amount of money at their disposal that they can print it at will, so to me this is only a rumor with no basis at all in the reality that we are experiencing and if a country like Russia is really looking to replace the dollar they should be looking at the market of gold and silver which is many times bigger than the market of cryptocurrencies.

Many Russian businessmen hold their funds in Bitcoin. For example, Herman Greff, director of Sberbank. Nobody will talk about it openly. And Bitcoin is really a good coin to bypass the sanctions that many countries, such as Japan, support.

Who?

Source: http://tass.com/economy/821750

I'm just saying that you need proof more than rumors from crypto media. Also, it would be best if you had a logical construct, to guide your thinking. For example, even if your statement is true "Many Russian businessmen hold their funds in Bitcoin," it doesn't mean that what OP said is true "Russia will replace its USD reserves with Bitcoin."

With the title, it seems to be positive but checking detail by detail if its truly a good news, you will start doubting on where the facts came from and who are those people that tells it positively. We don't actually know what's the exact position of the Russian government when it comes to crypto but as long as they won't ban it, I think that's already positive. I doubt it that Russia would replace their USD reserves for bitcoin. They may adopt and start using bitcoin or advertise it to their constituents but I still doubt the exact thought of the article or else it's an editorial.

What a load of BS!!!

The sanctions and embargoes are applicable only to certain sectors within the Russian economy. The Russian banking system is still connected to the SWIFT, and until that remains in place they don't need to do any sanction evasion. What you are claiming can be true with North Korea. The sanctions against DPRK cover almost all the sectors and it is difficult to make international banking transactions for them. But then, North Korea doesn't have the funds needed to manipulate the BTC prices. 

Nobody has direct evidence! We only operate with facts from newspapers, TV or the Internet. But cryptocurrency is used for trading and buying goods, in order to circumvent the imposed sanctions, on some industries. For example, for the purchase of equipment from Japan for construction, and there, as we know, Bitcoin is allowed.

You are right, it might be a rumor, and behind every rumor, there lies a truth, so we should not completely rule out the possibility, the only thing that I am sure of is that if Russia was to get involved and many other countries, they cannot openly declare their support for it.

I want to believe that this is just a speculation, and it’s not so bad because speculation is what the market breaths on, we just need to carefully chose what we believe in and make our own research first before responding, some of these speculations are there to cause FOMO, while some are there to create panic.

I seriously doubt this, not that I won't be happy anyway if that news were true. Of course, I will because that's a boost to Bitcoin. But I doubt if Russia will go the way of something as unstable and risky as cryptocurrency as an alternative to dollar. It isn't only Russia having a hard one with the US, China is also currently enmeshed in a trade war with the US. It's really a hard nut to crack. However, let's continue to enjoy the momentary rise of Bitcoin price no matter where the new pump is coming from.

USD is really only the global reserve currency because of how strong the United States military is.  Its backed by terror and not sound economics.  I have suspected that many governments around the world have started to mine and accumulate btc themselves in case the dollar collapses.

It is just a rumor, the same way we have seen so many news in the market too such as tether and many had speculated that it could be the reason why its increasing the price of bitcoin, is the same way they have speculated other factors too like that of Russian own.

As smart as Russia is, they have not declared their support for cryptocurrency, and if they have program of such, they would not announce it and do it codedly the way others have probably been doing it too, but let’s hope the rumor is even true, I also believe that it will really help the price of bitcoin shoot up, but won’t be much that significant.

What makes you think it can be impossible for Russia to get involved in cryptocurrency, have you ever seen where government hire experts to trade forex for them using the government reserve? They easily do this openly because forex has regulation, but since crypto is yet to get a regulation, each government may also be doing these trades secretly and they also understand the risk behind it.

That is why they will never use any money that will strongly affect the nation. Have you even ever asked yourself one question, what if this satoshi we are even saying is a code name gives to a Nation, what if it’s one country that really has this idea?

Russia is actually buying Gold (together with China).
They are buying Gold because is a proven store of Value.
I can see the allocating a few percentage points of buying digital gold.
This would be a lot of sense for them, and had a massive impact on BTC markets.
And would give US another go at trying to ban BTC!

Bitcoin is free and any nation can buy into it and use it for any legitimate aim which is fine and acceptable. Why will US government try to ban bitcoin? they will only look for a way to play smart and stay on top. We may not know what the US government has been secretly planing about the imminent disaster of the green paper.

Associating BTC with RUS would mean immediate ban.

I do not have too much faith and hope that this rumor is true when its exact ratio seems to be too low because as we know, bitcoin always has an amazing fluctuation rate, and in that fluctuation, it always has huge risks, so if Russia wants to reserve, they will never choose bitcoin, that is a very dangerous action, they will definitely choose safe, it is USD. However, without reserve, they may still have accumulated and invested heavily in bitcoin and crypto when the field always generates too much profit, especially attracting money from different countries, no investment is wasteful

So, at this point we can end the discussions for a while:

https://www.fontanka.ru/2019/05/15/073/

google translate:


So, Russian authorities don't give a damn about BTC, probably less than 0.001% of what people here care about what Russia is planning to do. Well, it's nothing!!!!

Well, one of these days people will have to own cryptocurrencies to use it or to hold it. For now, we can't imagine crypto being mainstream. There was a time when fax machines were the norm, cellular phones were the toys of the rich, and the internet was mainly for emails.

The tech will evolve to meet halfway to the needs of everyone - that is one thing I'm sure of. So, accumulate everything.

Yes, this is good news for the progress of Cryptocurrency, because big countries like Russia will buy as much Bitcoin as possible, I hear this from some news and articles that I read, I hope this increase in Bitcoin prices will continue to have a positive impact on Cryptocurrency and its use.

I totally agree with you on this, because of the volatility nature of bitcoin, it is still very risky to completely replaces a whole country’s reserve with bitcoin, until bitcoin gets to s stage where its value now becomes stable, and then people can confidently use it as store of value before they can really consider using it as reserve, but notwithstanding, it doesn’t mean they still cannot use part of it as investment, there is no investment that is not risky, and they might be wise enough to quickly use part of it to trade then take profit to increase their reserve. So if Russia is to participate in bitcoin, it would be for investment purpose alone.

All this is just talk and politics. It is obvious that it will not be easy to switch from dollar to bitcoin, if only because Russia is now not even ready to take such a step; But money laundering through cryptocurrency is going on there even among government officials.

This can probably be the reason for the next price increase of bitcoin but only if the rumors were turn out to be true  .  Like what others are saying , its not easy to replace a local currency like usd to be fully replaced by a cryptocurrency such as bitcoin because i think not all can be able to use bitcoin normally  ,what about other people that dont have an adequate knowledge ?  I think bitcoin will still remain as an alternative currency next to fiats 

Hahahah, how can it be when they have still not regulated cryptocurrency, you should know that most government are so strict about their own law and would not engage in what they have not openly declared to the public. This story of Russia is just going to be a rumor and I dint see the possibility of them REPLACING their reserve with bitcoin.

I dint even see their investment in bitcoin as positive because they will only end up manipulating the market and crashing it below the normal price, if they put in bitcoin to the tune of $10m, and it yield them 50% increase, do you think they will not sell off all their holdings to take profit?

Russian government will not do this one because they know that cryptocurrency can also be control by any other country which makes them more on risk. The volatility keeps the country away on cryptocurrency, but I don't agree that cryptocurrency has decreased on popularity because bitcoin are still doing a great job to pump and soon the market will see that one. Russia will never do this kind of decision, they can't just leave USD reserve.

For a country or government, i am little doubt about this news. Bitcoin could be a digital asset but to be government reserve, i think its too far and need more time because for government, its more safe to collect more gold than bitcoin. Bitcoin is risky assets compare gold and gold already known for centuries

I agree that it's entirely possible that Russia is covertly amassing bitcoin to bypass U.S. sanctions. There is speculation that the recent run-up of bitcoin has been driven by sovereign buying, which if true would not shock me. If I had to guess, it's a nation other than Russia doing the buying, but it would not shock me if it turned out to be Russia.

I agree! I think its too early to tell that Russia is contemplating on this matter since USD is an international currency and its not easy to replace or implement any replacement to it especially if we are talking with it involving multinational economies. Unless BTC becomes a popular alternative to USD and mass adoption is full blown, then I think Russia maybe getting a hard time doing it or could suffer ill effects related to its alleged plan if they try to pursue it.

Fake news. The source of this rumor, the "Russian economist", is not working in government. Basically, he is just a teacher.

Is that just fake news, friend? but if this is true it will be very fantastic news. and I'm sure BTC will grow even more

High profile person can suggest such ideas but in the economy, it can cost more than dollar averaged spendings. Bitcoin is not world reserve currency and its value depends on the other variables.  Economists usually agree with diversifying the government assets to different financial worldwide assets.

yes, in my opinion it's just fake news because it won't be possible for a country the size of Russia to replace USD reserves with bitcoin. of course if it really happened the whole world would be surprised by this and surely bitcoin would soar.

It is a fake news and I am surprised that this thread is alive after so many days. This is not just a lie, but it is a lie that even retarded people will have difficulty in believing. Forget about Russia, not even libertarian countries such as Switzerland will be ready to convert a part of their forex reserves to a volatile and decentralized asset, such as Bitcoin.   

Admins, please lock this thread. No point in beating the dead horse again and again.

If indeed this is true then this is a very good thing for the future of bitcoin because the country has entrusted their investment place in bitcoin which is still a lot of doubt by developing countries, and I really hope that bitcoin is accepted in all circles of society and many entrepreneurs  invest in this bitcoin

Countries who have sanctions could make use of bitcoin to overcome those restrictions and countries like Iran, Russia and many other countries could take advantage of that and have a trade with other countries, i am not sure how they will replace the entire dollar reserve which is not a smart move in any way but then looking forward if there is a reserve for the virtual currency, then it will be a good move to over come those restrictions.

I will believe that many people in the Russian government hold Bitcoins, but I do not think that they will turn the whole country to Bitcoin. Gold - yes. Cryptocurrencies - maybe, but mostly for their own needs.

You know people are used to juts coming up with lots of news to create FOMO in their own little way and the people coming up with such definitely have a very big investment in bitcoin and would do everything positive to sponsor great articles in favor of bitcoin even if it is untrue in order to create the hype.

So when I see some of these news, I accept it whole heatedly but don’t act on it because I know that some of them are not real, most of the news you have seen, how many of the people involved has really come out to official make a statement for or against it, none of them, and as they say, everything becomes a rumor until it is confirmed to be true.

Whatever happens or whatever happened, the current debt-based world order cannot continue any longer. The world's financial system cannot sustain itself indefinitely. The US government just cannot create dollars out of nothing. Something has to give eventually. Russia, China and some other nations knows this and are preparing for it.

Yes you are right and even government themselves will sure hold crypto to some extent which would be strictly for investment purpose too but to say they will openly declare their intention to the world, absolutely no. They would not dare it when running a government is not being done by a man. 

SO if they have to put money In crypto, which I don’t dispute the fact that they can take that risk because they have the money to do so. Imagine them investing up to $100 million dollars, do you think it will affect them in any way? This is money 1 man in some government steals and doesn’t affect them, so they don’t have to change their reserve to bitcoin for them to really make money from cryptocurrency.

Take volatility out and bitcoin becomes the best digital asset to hold but because of its volatile nature, Gold still the most reliable one temporarily. So Russia may have the plan to also hold it as asset against the future if they believe strongly in the system, but like you said, it will be bit impossible to hold it as reserve.

When it comes to something that has to do with national issue, one man cannot make such decision alone, and I am sure that In making decision to do so, a lot of members of government will surely oppose it, and until there is general regulation, countries may not fully engaged themselves with crypto.

There are many reasons why the USD is still the reserve currency of the world, to begin with a reserve currency is not something that can be replaced quickly, it is a slow process and it is happening as we speak, second the US economy for a long time was the only economy large enough and so it was convenient to use the dollar to settle debts and contracts, another reason was that the dollar was as good as gold for a long time but this changed during the 70s and now is not backed by anything.