Russia to buy Bitcoins worth of $10B? Fat chance of that

Cryptocurrency market switched into the recovery mode on Monday with all major coins in green. Bitcoin has gained about 4%, Ethereum is 9% higher than the day before, while Ripple's XRP has added 3.5%. Tron (TRX) is the market leader out of top-20. The coin managed to gain 10% since this time on Monday. 

While the recovery seems to be a factor of a technical correction, speculations from Russia might have helped to improve the market sentiments and create a necessary setup for the recovery. Moscow prepares to relocate $10B of its reserves from US dollar to Bitcoin in a bid to mitigate consequences of US sanctions, the Telegraph reports, citing Vladislav Ginko, an economist at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.

According to Ginko, the government is taking this step as a part of its de-dollarization efforts to protect its national interests in case of new sanctions and possible interruption of dollar payments for oil and gas. 

“[The] Russian government is about to make a step to start diversifying financial reserves into Bitcoin since Russia [is] forced by US sanctions to dump US Treasury bonds and [take] back US dollars,” he said. “These sanctions and the will to adopt modern financial technologies lead Russia to the way of investing its reserves into Bitcoin.”

The expert believes that the cryptocurrency industry now accounts for 8% of the Russian economy, while the state investments in the largest digital asset may start as early as February.

The idea of relocating some of the money to digital assets might sound logical, especially considering the recent Kremlin focus on technology development and innovations, but its realization is highly unlikely. 

According to the Head of Duma's Interagency Task Force for Cryptocurrencies Elina Sidorenko, the proposed scenario is hardly possible at this stage.

"This statement has no sense, and no touch with the ideas that might have been discussed by the governmental structures", - he said in the interview with the cryptocurrency-focused media outlet Forklog. "The Russian Federation, just like any other country, is not ready to merge cryptocurrencies with the traditional financial system. This idea is out of the question for at least 30 years."