The United States Undersecretary of the Treasury, Wally Adeyemo, recently stated that despite the worldwide interest in cryptocurrencies, the dollar will continue to be the dominant currency in the world. He even believes that central bank digital currencies (CBDC) such as Russia’s digital ruble pose no threat to the sanctions applied by the North American country.
According to sources, Adeyemo stated:
“We believe that even if a digital ruble or other digital currencies are established, there will still be scope for our sanctions to have an impact on their economies simply because the global economy is still interconnected.”
While Adeyemo sees cryptocurrencies as an “opportunity” for the US economy, he also sees flaws in them such as possible use for money laundering. Still, he notes that there are ways to profit from this growing crypto industry:
“We believe that ultimately, by working together with countries around the world, we can address this risk by asking digital asset creators to more closely follow the rules on money laundering”.
The official pointed out that despite the sanctions, Russia does business with other countries using the US dollar:
“Companies in Russia still do a lot of business around the world. A lot of those businesses are done in dollars, they are done with American financial institutions and that’s because the American economy is still the largest economy in the world.”
The statements of the US Undersecretary of the Treasury come in a context in which Russia is working on the implementation of the digital ruble by the year 2022. Also the Russian tycoon sanctioned by the United States, Oleg Deripaska asked the Russian government to use Bitcoin as a tool to evade sanctions and undermine the dollar. In the European country, cryptocurrencies have been legalized in their possession since 2020.
Last October, Russia’s deputy foreign minister expressed that country’s intentions to reduce the use of the dollar in international reserves. The United States has implemented a set of sanctions against Russia for reasons such as the poisoning of opposition politicians, the alleged electoral interference in that country and for cyberattacks, which add to a political, historical and ideological context of discrepancies for decades between both territories.
