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.