Topic: Russia can evade sanction through cryptocurrencies (Read 1884 times)

Actually, you can use Bitcoin offline. There's this thing called "physical bearer assets" which holds the private keys for you securely. Kind of like a cold storage wallet. OpenDime and Tangem cards are one of them. Paper wallets, too. You only need to be online to verify or confirm transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain.

So Russia and its allies can just send/receive Bitcoins physically like they would do with cash. They can connect to the web under the radar if they want to. As long as they use decentralized methods and do everything P2P or F2F, there shouldn't be any problem. Bitcoin can't be stopped no matter what. It's already too late for that. I guess the world will become more polarized in the future until we end up "killing ourselves". Who knows?

In fact, crypto is far from alternative and in terms of usage, at the moment they shouldn't even be compared. Can you have Bitcoin offline, in your hands? No, you can't give someone Bitcoin and get the change back. It only works online and then, it's still very impractical.
There are so many details that we can talk about. First of all, the government won't implement a currency that's created and managed by unknown developers. Also, for a crypto to be an alternative of fiat, needs to be as flexible as fiat is. I should be able to pay on PoS terminal with my crypto wallet, I should be able to have Card of my crypto wallet.
I think that cryptocurrencies are not from fiat niche, they are a new type of currency with its pros and cons but at the moment they aren't meant/designed for daily usage for billions of people.

I don't know the real reason behind Russia's decision to use cryptocurrencies for international payments but as we can see , the war between the two countries is about to enter its 3rd year. That means Russia's international trade transactions have been going very well over the past 3 years even without cryptocurrencies. And in the last 3 years, I have never heard of trade deals between Russia and China, or India having difficulties. So why should they worry if China and India don't accept cryptocurrencies? You need to know that they work together to create mutual benefits for all three parties , no one party depends on the other . So it's okay if their commercial transactions don't use cryptocurrencies.

I think Russia added cryptocurrency as a payment method because they want to expand their market further. Many countries are still hesitant about US and NATO sanctions and using cryptocurrencies will avoid that . It can be said that it is just an alternative and they are fine without it , that is why they started thinking about it after 3 years .

I'm certain Russia's allies will adopt cryptocurrencies for international transactions sooner than later. Especially when the goal is to circumvent western sanctions. China already opened its arms indirectly through Hong Kong. The "territory" (Special Administrative Region) is beginning to regulate the crypto industry as we speak. Some crypto ETFs were approved by the government. All that's left is for China to make an official annoucement that it will be adopting crypto for international settlements, and "boom".

Such moves will make Western countries angry towards crypto in the future. It's possible we'll see tighter crypto regulations in the long run. That won't stop Russia and its allies from participating in the system (it's decentralized, after all), but it will slow them down at least. We'll see how successful Russia's latest crypto ruling will be. Could this mean we're one step closer to "hyperbitcoinization"? I sure hope so...

After the Moscow Currency Exchange was banned from using the dollar and euro for international trades, Russia really had big difficulties with payments under interstate agreements. Long before that, Russia tried to switch to using the Chinese yuan, but there were big difficulties with the yuan as well.

Therefore, Russia really wants to try to use cryptocurrency for these purposes. This is evidenced by the bill No. 341257-8 submitted to the State Duma, which allows the Central Bank to launch an experiment on September 1 to create a platform for using cryptocurrencies in international settlements. But Russia's main trading partners - China and India - generally have a negative attitude towards cryptocurrency and it is difficult to imagine how they will trade with it. Moreover, as we know, cryptocurrency has very high price volatility, which introduces a certain instability in settlements.

It won't "kill" it, but it would definitely bring it down into a recession, and the fact of the matter is, a recession would mean less jobs - less jobs would also bring less demand on U.S. products which would also bring a recession to the United States.

The actual point? - They're economies are already interconnected and that they truly need one another.

According to my research, China is the top supplier to the US and reach a record $536 billion by 2023. But they are no longer the top suppliers, Mexico and Canada become the top exporters to the United States and China comes in third. But besides that, the US also exports more than 153 billion worth of goods to China every year, which is also not a small number, so it can be said that the two sides are interdependent. So if a conflict breaks out and trade relations are disrupted, it will cause serious damage to both sides, not just China.

I believe that not only China but also the United States does not want this to happen because the damage will be too great for both sides.

14% is a huge number and will cause significant damage to the Chinese economy but those who say this number will kill the Chinese economy are ridiculous  .

It is a large amount but it won't kill the Chinese economy. Specially since it won't happen over night. There will be enough time for them to make plans.... It has already started though...

China is too much of a weasel to go to war against US. It is US that went to war against China. This war was an economic war started by Obama, implemented largely by Trump and continued by Biden. It included a tariff war, supply chain disruption specially in Malacca Strait and the South China Sea (that is why China has tensions with the US proxy Taiwan), and a lot more.

That's the "enough time" for Chinese to plan ahead and alleviate the damages...

But 14%? That's still A LOT if they lose that. You don't believe it would be enough to start serious issues on both of them? China will go on a recession, and the United States will have supply problems, plus the will need to find other trading partners. Perhaps India.

Furthermore, if indeed China goes to an open war against the United States, how much of the total amount of their exports are going to the United States' allies?

They simply need each other, and China can't afford to lose the U.S. as a trading partner.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

China is exporting about $3.5 trillion ($3500 billion) worth of goods and services to the rest of the world. Only about $0.5 trillion (500 billion) of it is to the US. Losing that market (14% which is not "most" by the way) is definitely damaging to Chinese economy but it won't kill it.

You see things are not as black and white as you may think. It is not either China dies without US or China doesn't need US whatsoever. Things are more complicated than that.

 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But they ARE entirely dependent on each other. The U.S. market depends on the goods manufactured in China. Almost everything is "Made in China", including their iPhones.

Plus to those people that say China doesn't need the U.S.? Who buys MOST of China's manufactured goods? Because without the U.S. supporting the Chinese economy, China's economy would be DEAD.

China is not dependent on the West or vice versa, everything is based on mutually beneficial cooperation and no one wants to lose major business partners. That is why China has never intended to give up its relationship with Russia or its relationship with the West, they always seek to balance to bring the greatest benefit to themselves.

No one is talking bad about USD because it is still the world's dominant currency and some countries, especially BRICS, want to reduce their dependence on USD, or the ongoing de-dollarization process is also true. People just want and support a multipolar world instead of the unipolar world as it is today, but many stubborn people don't want to believe that and they don't want that to happen.

I believe that even in the event of war, these countries will still maintain a certain level of relationship for national interests, no one can be completely autonomous in everything because each country has its own strengths. The United States holds the semiconductor chip technology, but China is the country that holds more than 90% of the world's rare earths. They need each other, not one is afraid of the other.

Merely useless under their system, but if there's another Cabal that actually uses the network for censorship-resistance, for example the alliance of China - Russia and the those other regions like Iran - goes around U.S. sanctions and actually BE SUCCESSFUL in converting their currencies to the U.S. Dollar through a mix of layers of moving money, including the Bitcoin blockchain, then I believe it's going to be recognized both as a threat and as a very valuable resource for their enemies.

What should they do? Ignore the threat and the valuable resource?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯


But who would follow Govcoin? They will need the community - Miners, Exchanges, Merchants/Services, Users. All of them important in giving Bitcoin its network effect.

That is correct. Sometimes people forget how dependant China can be in terms of their economical growth of the western market and their western partners, specially when I see some topic/thread here in the forum badmouthing the United States Dollar anf insisting on the future of the BRICS new currency...
I still believe China is trying to keep some sort of equilibrium between their political alliance with Russia and the same time continue their economical relation with the west.
Part of the game is to continue to supply both North Korea and Russia with technology and military products (not money) while the Chinese Communist Party gets paid with energy (oil from Russian fields). Since there are not third party banks involved in those exchanges of goods, then there are not direct reprisals from the west, yet.

On the other hand, the United States and the west are also kind of dependant on the cheap labor China continues to offer to the world, USA has tried to replace or be least dependant of Chinese chips, but it is a very difficult task to compete with their prices, added to the fact their have the biggest deposits of rare minerals on the planet. Even if USA and the west tried to replace china's products, the price of them would spike and scare competition away.

The fact is that, for example, the U.S., the EU and their partners, with a great desire can make bitcoin, although working means, but extremely useless. If bitcoin loses its value and its transformation into fiat stable currencies (dollar, euro, yen, etc.) becomes virtually impossible, then there will be no point in using it as a means of payment. Then it would be easier to create your own cryptocurrency by forking bitcoin/etherium/..., and chasing it between rogue countries to create the appearance of payments. But this does not solve the key problem of rogue countries - dependence on external markets, external technologies, external suppliers.... Who needs their empty phantoms, or “dirty bitcoins” that no one will allow on the exchange/fund/exchange system ?

Although that's true, I believe with Bitcoin it's already too late for the Cabal in government to stop it if such a technology is adopted by nefarious groups and individuals. But I would like to see a government entity try. Because Bitcoin as a weakener of political strongholds will be adopted by the enemies of that who controls those power strongholds, forcing them to adopt Bitcoin themselves.

To illustrate, if the United States bans Bitcoin, then suddenly it's adopted, accumulated, and USED by Russia, China, and its allies to their advantage - then the United States might not have a choice but to accumulate such a valuable resource for their enemies.

The problem for the crypto world, in this situation, is that when such solutions are used by terrorists, pariahs, and other inadequate regimes, this solution begins to cause additional attention, and most likely new regulatory and restrictive solutions, which will negatively affect all adequate participants in the crypto world. But while the terrorist country has started using gold from the gold reserve to pay for Chinese goods ) Reason ? Banal - significant Chinese banks began to actively block all payments from/to Russia, because of unwillingness to get sanctions and lose the Western market, on which the Chinese economy depends completely.

Crypto (meaning thousands of altcoins and tokens) are not an alternative to anything. 99% of them are useless in real world. People use them to gamble on the market and see if their "ticket" wins. In this case it is not about their size, it is about their utility.

But Bitcoin can be and what you said here is true about bitcoin since as the only decentralized payment system bitcoin is an alternative to the dollar.

But at the same time lets not forget that bitcoin is also not the best option when it comes to "big trades". Imagine the oil trade with an oil tanker that is carrying $50 million worth of crude oil. Bitcoin is too volatile for such a big amount of money, for example in this calm market with little volatility the price dumped 6% in one day a couple of days ago. That is a $3 million loss. We've had 20% and 30% dumps in one day as well. It doesn't have to be dump either, price could go up 20% and still it would be a loss since once side has to pay more!
So bitcoin is currently not an alternative to the dollar to be used as reserve currency. It can be used as an investment by countries like el Salvador and only when price is more stable be also used for international trades.

How can cryptocurrency challenge or impact fiat when its value is still pegged to fiat? Do you see which coin that is not pegged to fiat including Bitcoin? Have you seen any business or store that accepts cryptocurrency as a payment method but never depends on fiat exchange rates? Cryptocurrency has never been and will never be able to replace or impact fiat as long as it relies on fiat to measure value. Or the biggest barrier it faces is the government. If the government doesn't legalize it, doesn't let us use it as an alternative currency, it's never going to happen.

There's actually some news about Russia's approval of using crypto for international settlements. What that cryptocurrency actually will be, it wasn't named/mentioned. But I'm confident that Bitcoin will be the best among the available choices. It has the largest market, it has the most users, it's the most adopted coin, and therefore it's the easiest cryptocurrency buy because it's listed in ALL exchanges.