Back in 2017 I talked at length about Russia's growing love affair with cryptocurrencies. From Venezuela's Petro to the announced Crypto-ruble, there has been a lot of smoke when it comes to cryptocurrencies actually being used to facilitate real world transactions, but precious little fire.

The Russians just lit a massive one.

By announcing they would be diversifying $10 billion of their foreign exchange reserves (out of more than $460 billion) into Bitcoin, Russia completely legitimizes Bitcoin without any strings attached.

If you listen to the rhetoric coming out of Wall St. all you hear is, "well, blockchain is good, but Bitcoin is terrible." Why would that be? Because Wall St. wants control over what form cryptocurrencies take in the global monetary system. 

In their mind it has to take a form they approve of or, at the very least, can control. And they don't control Bitcoin.

Russia looks at the situation differently. It rightly sees Wall St. and Washington D.C. as their enemies, because they are. And they know that the key to Russia's long-term economic and financial health comes from being able to transact commerce with whomever they wish for whatever they can agree to.

There will be no negotiations with the U.S. over Russia's future role within the current monetary system. Either Russia submits to Wall St. and Washington's control or they will be cut out of it.

Trump is hopeless on this issue as his plan is to simply substitute physical invasion and endless occupations with financial repression and warfare.

Empire on the cheap, in other words.

For Russia, every instance of U.S. interference into their economy — sanctions, bullying, AML and KYC laws — is costly. It retards growth while they build workarounds and alternative systems.

That is part of the point of these tactics by the U.S.; to impede Russia's growth by creating inefficiencies in its trade.

But if there is one thing that cryptocurrencies, for all of their faults, are good at it is cutting through the complexity of moving money from one place to another. Once you know how to do it, moving money with Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency is quick.

It doesn't matter if you are buying a candy bar or settling a couple hundred oil futures contracts, the transaction takes roughly the same amount of time.

So, once you understand that the main reason the U.S. is angry with Russia is because it has the temerity to tell the U.S., "No." Nothing more, nothing less. Putin refused to allow Russia to be strip-mined by people like Bill Browder, who himself is nothing more than a front for the banks who stand behind our politicians.