The U.S. and Europe has has forced economical sanctions on Russia targeting the county’s banks and oligarchs. In the last weeks ‘The sanctions have gone so far to block the Russian central bank foreign reserves.
Because of these unprecedented sanctions, some wealthy Russians have turned their attention toward cryptocurrencies causing a small surge in the bitcoin price, while Russia itself has sloped up the long course of ending its dependence on U.S. monetary organizations like Visa and the worldwide interbank installments framework SWIFT.
Jim Rogers, The Chairman of Beeland Interests and Co-founder of the Quantum Fund and Soros Fund Management has cautioned “what is happening with the U.S. dollar now is the end of the U.S. dollar”— however, he warns that governments will do whatever they can to prevent the hyperbitcoinization and let bitcoin become an alternative to the US dollar.
In an interview for Economic Times Rogers said:
“An international currency is supposed to be neutral but in Washington, they are now changing the rules,… Now if Washington does not like you, they put sanctions on you and you cannot use U.S. dollars.”
Rogers expects that countries like Russia, China, Brazil, Iran, India, and Brazil will look for alternatives to diminish their dollar dependence.
“The U.S. is the largest debtor nation in the world so, for fundamental reasons and political reasons, people are looking for competing for currency,” Rogers said, adding he doesn’t know what that will be yet but hopes he’s “smart enough to buy it when you find it.”
Another legendary investor Bill Miller said last week:
“Russia has almost 50% of their reserves in currencies that are controlled by people who want to do them harm … they have 22% in gold that is the only part of their reserve that other countries can’t control,” adding “from Russia’s point of view, that’s not a great position to be in.
“It’s thought Russia has around 16% of its foreign reserves in U.S. dollars. Despite some in the crypto community suggesting bitcoin could serve as a replacement for the U.S. dollar, Rogers expects the government to eventually “outlaw it.”
“I do not like it but that is the way governments are, and I just suspect that they will either tax it or regulate it or outlaw it or something because they do not want to lose control,”
Said Roger, who previously predicted that bitcoin will go to zero because of government crackdowns.
In the last year, El Salvador became the first country in the world to make bitcoin legal tender and started buying cryptocurrency in the hope to decrease the reliance on the US dollar and the traditional financial system. Since the adoption of bitcoin, reportedly the country has seen an increase in tourism
In January this year, Fidelity the American multinational financial services corporation predicted that this year many governments and central banks will start buying bitcoin following the example of El Salvador stating that:
“If bitcoin adoption increases, the countries that secure some bitcoin today will be better off competitively than their peers.