The Russian authorities should analyze the prospects for using cryptocurrencies after US President Donald Trump's decision to form a strategic reserve of them, said the head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) Alexander Shokhin.
“In general, cryptocurrencies are, relatively speaking, an encroachment on the sovereign rights of the issuing center. This is obvious to any state, and the central bank of any country would not want such competition, where it does not control emissions and there are several issuing centers. But it seems that it has long been agreed that crypto can be used in cross-border settlements“, Shokhin said. He noted that in the context of external restrictions on payment and settlement transactions for Russian economic entities, cryptocurrency has become one of the tools for making payments.
„Well, after Trump said that now the US will become the crypto capital of the world and is already accumulating crypto reserves, at least in Ethereum and Bitcoin, we also need to look at it in some way – how, on the one hand, to approach it carefully so as not to create several emission centers, and on the other hand – to conduct the same cross-border settlements and the use of digital financial assets“, Shokin noted.
According to him, the issue has already been developed within the framework of the idea of creating an alternative payment and settlement system to the dollar using the so-called stablecoins. “But stablecoin is still tied to assets. Here we could think about creating a payment and settlement system similar to the IMF's special drawing rights, but with the introduction of additional assets, reserves in the form of gold. That is, a return in a sense to the gold standard and the exchange of goods with prices stable for ten years or more. Such calculations are being made", said the head of the RSPP.
„This is not an alternative currency, but an alternative system of payment and settlement relations on which national currencies can be based“, he added.