The head of Russian oil company Rosneft has not ruled out the possibility of paying for oil using cryptocurrencies in the future, according to a report by Snob.ru on June 6.
Igor Sechin said the industry’s acceptance and awareness of digital assets is beginning to rise as Silicon Valley tech giants including Google, Amazon and Apple begin to explore the oil and gas sector.
While he suggested that the stablecoin Facebook is currently developing could one day be used to purchase oil by the barrel, Sechin warned there are some hurdles that cryptocurrencies need to overcome if they are to pique the interest of energy giants. He was quoted as saying:
“Greater flexibility often means greater volatility, and digitalization creates risks for maintaining commercial secrets and leads to the need to create new regulatory mechanisms, additional reservations. Today, technology companies do not have quality answers to these fundamental questions.”
Sechin was speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
Oil and cryptocurrencies have been linked before, with Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro issuing a coin known as the Petro, which was supposedly tied to the nation’s reserves of commodities including gold, diamonds and oil.
Last November, major oil companies joined large banks to launch a blockchain-driven platform for commodity trading, but this was more focused on helping industry players transition from paperwork to smart contracts.