Vladislav Ginko, the economic analyst who claims Russia will invest $10 billion of its reserves into Bitcoin, has issued a statement to Micky News following questions over his credibility.
(NOTE: Micky News is aware Ginko has been seeking payment for his time. He was not paid for this article.)
By Vladislav Ginko:
Russia is again spotlight for international media outlets. My statement about the intention of Russia put at least $10 billion of its reserves stirred up the public, and some media outlets hurried to claim that there is “fake news”. The most ridiculous claim was that “Russia Denies Buying $10 Billion in Bitcoin.” The logic question is who denies? Russia’s President Vladimir Putin?
At 15th-17th January in Moscow international economic Gaidar forum was held. The most workshops was dedicated to the cryptocurrencies topic. The prime-minister Dmitry dmitry Medvedev, the staunch ally of Vladimir Putin and the second person in Russia’s political hierarchy, in his opening speech warned more than 17,000 forum’s participants “don’t bury” cryptocurrencies because of downward market trend last year. This passage reminded many attendees that it sounded as the motto of any typical HODLer of cryptocurrencies.
Moreover the head of Russia’s government apparently didn’t deny the universal option “to hold money in cryptocurrencies”. About such option the prime-minister was asked by Vladimir Mau, famous Russia’s economist, the independent director and the member of Russia’s gas giant “Gazprom”. Vladimir Mau is also key person in Russia’s system of state officials’ education and trainings. The prime-minister has also talked about the decline of the cryptocurrencies prices and said that “some of them became diminished in their valuation by five times” pointing obviously to Bitcoin that suffered such decline when many other peers experienced more than 90% from all-time-high. Dmitry Medvedev also ask people track the cryptocurrencies market development on regular base.
The vice-minister of finance, Alexey Moiseev, echoed the words of his chief. He stressed that cryptocurrencies ceased to look as Ponzi scheme. He has also positively spoken about ICO as “a new tool of financing for to run small and medium business.” Alexey Moiseev also believes that cryptocurrencies may play positive role in “eclipsing US sanctions.” It’s worth to recall that the Vladimir Putin’s adviser Sergey Glazyev is an ardent adept of cryptocurrencies too. 20th September 2018 he met Leon Li, Huobi co-founder, in Beijing. After that meeting Sergey Glazyev stressed that Russia had to explore the Huobi experience in cryptocurrencies trading since it would be useful while Russai facing new US sanctions.
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This all don’t leave the place of doubt that Russia is seeking its way in cryptocurrencies world. As a result of US sanctions Russia has to follow the way of Venezuela, Iran and North Korea in its de-dollarization strategy. Almost all payments for Russia’s gas and oil that brings about 75% of all exports revenue are transacted in US dollars. The new looming sanctions wave from Washington may paralyze all such transactions.
Russia has already made steps towards to de-dollarization. The central bank has developed and launched national payment system as analogue to SWIFT. Moscow has ten times diminished the possession of US Treasuries bonds, just to less than $15 billion.
The banking regulator also diversified $101 billion of its reserves investing them in euro, Chinese yuan and others. This step undertaken last year unfortunately brought about $10 billion financial loss due the volatile exchange rates. This loss could not be left unnoticed so there is new reality Russia faces: the run from US dollars to other сurrencies put the national financial system in dependence of politics of other central banks that make fiat less and less predictable asset. The same policy also became futile when new US sanctions are being introduced. Any payments in foreign currencies will be as a walking in a minefield, and any transactions may be frozen because of suspicions raised by OFAC of US Treasury. Russia doesn’t want to lose more $10 billion and find the ten times more sum left in oblivion until US sanctions are lifted. The decisiveness of Russia’s power to avoid economic collapse lead to Bitcoin as a new class of assets.
– Vladislav Ginko, economist, RANEPA, Moscow, Russia