MOAR U.S. Sanctions Will Accelerate Moscow’s Embrace of Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain

Posted by James the Russian Analyst

Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) speaks at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) with ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin (the skinny young man on the right) listening, June 2017.

German/Austrian Objections to Washington’s Latest Expansion of Economic War vs. Russia

Aside from ‘punishing Russia for its election meddling’ which has never been proven beyond reasonable doubt, the Senate legislation applies Washington’s extraterritorial edicts to firms in U.S. allied nations or third countries to transact business with Russia. The bipartisan (read: globalist uniparty policy imposing) bill, which still awaits the verdict in the Republican-led U.S. House, has already angered European governments like those of Austria and to many Atlanticists surprise, the country they though they’d 100% neutered — Germany.

The Austrians, who host the Central European gas storage hub at Baumgarten in which Russia’s state-owned Gazprom has a stake, see this legislation as a scam to force expensive tanker shipped American liquefied natural gas (LNG) on the EU at the expense of cheaper, piped Russian gas on the Continent:

Less than a day after the Senate overwhelmingly voted to impose new sanctions against the Kremlin, on Thursday Germany and Austria – two of Russia’s biggest energy clients in Europe – slammed the latest U.S. sanctions against Moscow, saying they could affect European businesses involved in piping in Russian natural gas.

Shortly after the Senate voted Wednesday to slap new sanctions on key sectors of Russia’s economy over “interference in the 2016 U.S. elections” and aggression in Syria and Ukraine, in a joint statement Austria’s Chancellor Christian Kern and Germany’s Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said it appeared that the Senate bill was aimed at securing US energy jobs and pushing out Russian gas deliveries to Europe.

While Vladimir Putin was correct to state in this week’s annual marathon call in question session, that sanctions are a tool whereby the U.S. government attempts to restrict geoeconomic rivals, Moscow and its Eurasian partner China are not without sharp tools of their own. Where the Cold War 2.0 waging Senators like John “McInsane” McCain have badly erred, is assuming that the ‘correlation of (geoeconomic) forces’ in 2017 is like 2014. But a lot can change in three fast years — in much the same way that German panzer generals found the Soviet defenses at Kursk in 1943 much tougher nuts to crack than the blitzed Red Army of 1941.

Read more ----------------> http://www.roguemoney.net/2017/06/16/sanctions-accelerate-russia-cryptocurrencies/