Russia is reportedly considering accepting Bitcoin as a payment method for its oil and gas exports, according to the chair of Russia’s Duma committee on energy, Pavel Zavalny, who said “friendly” countries could be allowed to pay in the cryptocurrency or their local currencies.

Oil giant ExxonMobil (XOM) is running a pilot project to use excess natural gas that would otherwise be burned off from North Dakota oil wells to power cryptocurrency mining operations.

A survey from investment banking giant Goldman Sachs shows investors are still bullish on cryptocurrencies. The bank reportedly surveyed 172 clients on their attitudes toward digital assets, and 60% revealed they expect to increase crypto holdings in the next one to two years.

Sponsored: The Invictus suite of funds offered commendable performance in a quarter marked by heightened volatility in the Bitcoin and broader cryptoasset market. All five of the Invictus funds registered positive returns for the quarter, with the vast majority outperforming their benchmarks. 

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• Russia Considers Taking Bitcoin Payments for Oil and Gas
• ExxonMobil Runs Gas-to-Bitcoin Pilot Project
• 60% of Goldman Sachs Clients Ready to Increase Crypto Holdings
• Crypto Market Movers – APE, ZEC, ETC
• Sponsored: Invictus Capital continues to deliver an uninterrupted path of growth across all its funds

Russia Considers Taking Bitcoin Payments for Oil and Gas

Russia is reportedly considering accepting Bitcoin as a payment method for its oil and gas exports, according to the chair of Russia’s Duma committee on energy, Pavel Zavalny, who said “friendly” countries could be allowed to pay in the cryptocurrency or their local currencies.

Earlier this week Russian President Vladimir Putin said he wanted “unfriendly” countries to pay for oil and gas in Russia’s fiat currency, the rouble. The move is believed to be aimed at boosting the value of the currency, which has plummeted more than 20% year-to-date.

Zavalny also doubled down on Putin’s comments, saying “unfriendly” countries had the option to pay in “hard currency” referring to gold, or “as it is convenient for us,” meaning in their national currency.

While the U.S. has banned imports of Russian oil in response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the European Union is unlikely to follow suit as it heavily relies on Russian energy.

In 2021, Putin had said he believed Bitcoin had value but wasn’t ready to replace the U.S. dollar in settling oil trades.

ExxonMobil Runs Gas-to-Bitcoin Pilot Project

Oil giant ExxonMobil (XOM) is running a pilot project to use excess natural gas that would otherwise be burned off from North Dakota oil wells to power cryptocurrency mining operations.

The oil giant has formed an agreement with Crusoe Energy Systems to take gas from an oil well pad to power mobile generators used to run BTC mining machines on site. The pilot project was launched in January 2021 and expanded in July.

The project reportedly uses up to 18 million cubic feet of gas per month that would otherwise be burned off – or flared – because of a lack of pipelines. The firm is reportedly looking to do the same at other sites around the world including in Alaska, Nigeria, Argentina, Guyana, and Germany.

Oil and gas producers are under pressure from regulators and investors to reduce their carbon footprint, which would involve reducing the amount of gas they flare. While this way the gas is still burned, the energy generated is put to use.

Last month, oil and gas giant ConocoPhillips entered the Bitcoin mining fuel business through a similar program.

60% of Goldman Sachs Clients Ready to Increase Crypto Holdings

A survey from investment banking giant Goldman Sachs shows investors are still bullish on cryptocurrencies. The bank reportedly surveyed 172 clients on their attitudes toward digital assets, and 60% revealed they expect to increase crypto holdings in the next one to two years.

Of the respondents who expressed enthusiasm about crypto, 32% said they expect to “significantly increase” their holdings. 51% of the bank’s clients reported exposure to crypto, up from 40% in the previous year.

About 55% of respondents revealed they could allocate up to 5% of their total assets to crypto, the survey shows. It also showed institutional investors are warming up to decentralized finance (DeFi), altcoins, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

While 22% of respondents showed strong interest in both BTC and ETH, 15% took an interest in altcoins, 14% in DeFi token exposure, and 9% in NFTs.

Crypto Market Movers – APE, ZEC, ETC

Several tokens are leading the charge in the last 7-day period. Some of these are well-known cryptocurrencies with more liquid trading pairs, so we’ll be focusing on these over low-cap cryptos that may have higher percentage changes.

ApeCoin (APE) - ApeCoin is an ERC-20 governance and utility token used within the APE ecosystem to empower a decentralized community building at the forefront of web3. The APE Foundation is the steward of ApeCoin. It is the base layer on which ApeCoin holders in the ApeCoin DAO can build.

Zcash (ZEC) - ZCash is a privacy-driven cryptocurrency. It uses the Equihash as an algorithm, which is an asymmetric memory-hard Proof of Work algorithm based on the generalized birthday problem. It relies on high RAM requirements to bottleneck the generation of proofs and making ASIC development unfeasible.

Ethereum Classic (ETC) - Ethereum Classic is an attempt at keeping the Ethereum blockchain unaltered by the part of the community that opposed the hard fork and the return of The DAO funds. It started trading on Poloniex and is getting more and more traction.

Invictus Capital continues to deliver an uninterrupted path of growth across all its funds

The Invictus suite of funds offered commendable performance in a quarter marked by heightened volatility in the Bitcoin and broader cryptoasset market. All five of the Invictus funds registered positive returns for the quarter, with the vast majority outperforming their benchmarks. The simple average return across our suite of funds was 10.7% for the quarter, which is equivalent to an annualized return of 50%.

• The Crypto10 Hedged (C10) fund offered the greatest returns over the quarter at 23.91%, far outstripping its benchmark of 1.66% and Bitcoin at 12.36%. 

• Crypto20, the flagship fund, had a stellar year registering a return of 334.98%, it significantly outperformed its Top 20 equally weighted benchmark, which rose 261.92%.

• The Invictus Bitcoin Alpha (IBA) fund  managed to outperform Bitcoin throughout the fourth quarter, marking a total return of 14.56%, accompanied by significantly less volatility.

• The Hyperion venture capital fund continued on its impressive run, appreciating a further 5.05% off the back of a Quantfury dividend and Syntropy revaluation. The large dividend received by Quantfury will allow for a healthy level of buy-and-burn activity on the IHF token over the coming months.

• Invictus Margin Lending (IML) Fund registered a 2.48% net return for the quarter against its 1.48% benchmark hurdle.

Invictus Capital is now on the cusp of a historic migration into a fully-regulated fund structure that will place us at the forefront of innovation within the asset management space. It should also bring our investors the peace of mind that comes with additional, 3rd-party oversight of our operations.

Disclaimer:

Cryptocurrency trading involves high risk, and is not suitable for all investors. Before deciding to trade cryptocurrencies, tokens or any other digital asset you should carefully consider your investment objectives, level of experience, and risk appetite.

Its content does not constitute financial advice. Please remember that the value of investments, and any income from them, can fall as well as rise so you could get back less than you invest. If you are unsure of the suitability of your investment please seek advice.

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