RUSSIA STARTS TRADING OIL FOR CRYPTOCURRENCY

Russia has found another way around Western sanctions and is trading oil with China and India in exchange for cryptocurrencies, Reuters reports, citing four sources familiar with the situation.

The agency's sources said that Moscow is using the stablecoins Bitcoin, Ether and Tether to facilitate the conversion of the national currencies of the buyer countries (yuan and rupee) into rubles, bypassing the dollar. The trading scheme looks like this: deliveries are made by a trader who accepts the national currency from an oil buyer in one account, transfers it into cryptocurrency in a second account and from there transfers it to a third account, also in Russia.

One of Reuters' sources said that the scheme is working well. He is confident that it will continue to be used even if the sanctions are lifted. Compared to overall oil exports, the volumes of such transactions are still small, but they are growing. Cryptocurrency deliveries by a Russian oil trader reach tens of millions of dollars per month.

Donald Trump's administration is imposing additional sanctions on Russia's oil, gas and banking sectors. Previously, the United States refused to extend the document that allows foreign companies to pay for Russian energy resources through sanctioned banks. "If you are a foreign refiner, an oil trader, or someone who buys Russian gas and your bank wants to pay Russia for oil and gas in dollars or, in fact, in any other Western currency, you will have a very difficult time doing that," former State Department official Edward Fishman told Bloomberg.

A day earlier, the US Treasury Department did not renew the license that allows payment for Russian energy resources through sanctioned Russian banks. The document also mentions Sber, VTB, Alfa Bank, Sovcombank, Rosbank and the Central Bank. This license has been regularly extended since March 2022, and as CBS writes, its absence will make it difficult for other countries to buy Russian oil and could lead to a $5 increase in oil prices.