Bitcoin Touches $41K as Russian Minister Says They Work on a Digital Currency

Bitcoin is back above $40k despite descending to $34k just last week. Meanwhile, as politicians discuss Russia’s potential use of cryptocurrency to evade sanctions, the eastern superpower is apparently working on a digital world currency.

• At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $40,976, having briefly peaked over $41k today. That’s up from under $38k just four hours ago.
• Bitcoin’s price plunged to $34k on Thursday after Russia announced “special military operations” in Ukraine. It then quickly rebounded after Biden assured Americans that they would not play a central role in the conflict.
• Now, Bitcoin has broken its $40k resistance shortly after Russia revealed that it is working on “one world one currency” for trade, according to @zerohedge on Twitter.
• Earlier this month, Russia began piloting its CBDC project for a digital ruble, though the project mentioned today may be entirely different. The ruble’s price is very shaky at the moment, now worth less than $0.01.
• The Russian central bank has shown hostility toward private cryptocurrencies, advocating to ban them from Russia. However, President Putin and the Ministry of Finance were more open to the likes of Bitcoin for the advantages it could present in the mining arena.
• Not all in the industry are on board, however: A large Ethereum mining farm recently stopped servicing its Russian users to show solidarity with Ukraine amid the conflict between the nations.
• Some suspect that Russia may use crypto to bypass sanctions and support itself during the war, as Ukraine has. No reports of this have emerged yet, however.
• This month, the parties reached an agreement to regulate cryptos as “currencies” instead of banning them.