China and Russia are now using Bitcoin to pay for energy deals, according to VanEck. This comes as Donald Trump hits China and the EU with new tariffs, announced on April 2, sending Bitcoin briefly down from $85,000 to $81,000.
By the weekend, it dropped even more. But even with that slide, Bitcoin still beat the Nasdaq across every timeframe: week, month, year-to-date, and even going back ten years.
VanEck said the global response to these tariffs could help Bitcoin in the long term. If the U.S. economy slows down without another spike in inflation, the Federal Reserve might start cutting rates again. That would bring back the type of easy-money environment where Bitcoin has always done well.
At the same time, countries that don’t want to rely on U.S. financial systems are looking at crypto as a neutral way to move money, especially for big trades like oil and electricity.
Russia uses Bitcoin to bypass sanctions in oil trades
Just last month, Reuters reported that Russia is using crypto—including Bitcoin, Ether, and Tether—to handle oil trades with China and India. While Russia passed a law last summer allowing crypto for international trade, the fact that oil companies are now using it for actual oil sales is new.
The total value of Russia’s oil trade hit $192 billion last year, according to the International Energy Agency. Crypto is still a small slice of that number, but it’s growing.
A person familiar with one oil trader’s operations allegedly told Reuters that crypto payments to China alone were worth tens of millions of dollars each month. These payments are done through middlemen. The Chinese buyer pays in yuan into an offshore account, then the middleman converts it into crypto, sends it to another account, and finally, it gets converted into rubles back in Russia.
Other countries have used similar tactics. Iran and Venezuela both used crypto to keep doing oil business under U.S. sanctions. Venezuela even increased its use of crypto after Washington brought sanctions back.
Last year, Russia said sanctions caused major payment delays across the economy. Right now, Trump is in the White House, pushing to end the war in Ukraine. He’s talked about easing sanctions on Russia, but nothing has been finalized. In fact, on March 7, Trump posted that he’s “strongly considering” even more sanctions.
Besides Bitcoin, Russia still uses traditional workarounds like the UAE dirham for oil trades. But crypto keeps growing as one of the options.
In its report, VanEck said any drop in the dollar could help build the story of Bitcoin as a hedge in a world where alliances are breaking apart. If China or the EU fight back against U.S. sanctions with their own systems, it could drive more interest in crypto.
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