Payment with bitcoins in Russia: what can you buy and where to pay?

Bitcoin (BTC) is a digital alternative to traditional money. But so far, Bitcoin cannot compete with fiat currency.

RusCoins.info decided to find out what can be paid with bitcoins in Russia, how to pay with cryptocurrency, what are the advantages and disadvantages of using bitcoin as a means of payment, the future of cryptocurrency transactions.

Is it possible to live without fiat money?

In the summer of 2022, only the lazy did not talk about cryptocurrency. If previously Bitcoin was used on the darknet, paying for transactions for the purchase and sale of weapons and other illegal goods, then after the rate soared, people began to seriously think: could cryptocurrency revolutionize the financial market?

Just a year ago, 99% of workers would have twirled their fingers at their temples when asked to receive their salaries in cryptocurrency. But today many already receive bitcoin instead of the ruble for their work. For example, Evgeny Savelyev, CEO of Huston Digital, works outsourced and receives a salary in cryptocurrency. Evgeniy works with cryptocurrencies and provides services for preparing mining farms and writing programs for collecting information.

The CEO of the social network on the Golos.io blockchain, Sergei Simanovsky, lives similarly on cryptocurrency. There are many examples where employees receive salaries in Bitcoin or Ethereum, but the labor is associated with cryptocurrency and outsourcing. There are no cases yet where a salesperson at Pyaterochka receives a salary in crypto. The reason for this is the legislator’s attitude towards Bitcoin, the ban on its use as a means of payment. And the seller, most likely, would be against receiving bitcoin instead of rubles.

What is the advantage of using cryptocurrency - exchange for any currency of another country. What's the downside? Cryptocurrency has to be exchanged for fiat. Without this, it is impossible to fully use the money, since there are few services that accept Bitcoin for payment. Bitcoin is not accepted by the grocery store near your home, although the service is generally more common with individuals than with large companies.

Where Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are prohibited

For the sake of fairness, it is worth paying attention to the list of countries where digital coins are not circulated, and their possession can lead to serious problems with the law, or to those countries where their status is “borderline”.

Where military-technical cooperation is prohibited and types of restrictions (as of June 2021)

In conclusion, it must be emphasized: the situation with cryptocoins, their legalized, prohibited or combined status, can change catastrophically quickly. The reason for this may be a decision of the financial regulator, requirements of the World Bank, or a proven specific case of fraud or money laundering. In the end, all that remains is to wish everyone to work with different coins absolutely legally, always get a good rate and make a profit from transactions.

Author Ganesa K.

A professional investor with 5 years of experience working with various financial instruments, runs his own blog and advises investors. Own effective methods and information support for investments.

Payment with bitcoins in Russia, what goods and services can be purchased

Shopping with Bitcoin in Russia is not very developed. But if you want to introduce a couple of tenths of Bitcoin into circulation, you can find many areas of application.

Travel, hotels, air tickets

If you have Bitcoin in your pocket, you can easily fly to the other side of the world. Use expedia.com to book flights, accommodations and even car rentals using Bitcoin. A similar service will be provided by cheapair.com and travelforcoins.com. And if you need to fly from St. Petersburg or Moscow using bitcoins, use the air carrier AirBaltic.

Restaurants, cafes

Inspired by the story of Laszlo Hynex, who spent 10,000 BTC on 2 pizzas in May 2010, the guys opened the website PizzaForCoins.com, where you can order pizza for Bitcoin. Enter the city, select possible pizzerias, place your order, pay - and warm pizza rushes to your home by courier. You can eat for Bitcoin at Killfish, BurgerKing, the Valenok restaurant on Tsvetnoy Boulevard, at the Headquarters coffee shop and Coffee In.

Fitness clubs

You can pay for a gym membership at NanoFitness in Tyumen and St. Petersburg. True, the owners of the fitness club said that they had to face the prosecutor’s office after they added Bitcoin to the payment methods. Since cryptocurrency is illegal, the legislator sees money laundering and tax evasion in transactions with Bitcoin. It is worth noting that the owners of establishments are not against paying taxes and introducing cryptocurrency into the legal field, but it is easier for the legislator to ban an unusual means of payment than to find competent regulation.

Online stores

eBay, Amazon, FastTech accept cryptocurrency. From Russian stores you can pay with Bitcoin at Ulmart. If you cannot find any product or store that accepts Bitcoin, contact the gyft.com service, which sells gift certificates.

Other products and services

You can buy VPN, Microsoft software products and applications in the AppStore with Bitcoin. Using cpay.io you can transfer Bitcoin to your phone.

Oddly enough, cryptocurrency is very popular among individual entrepreneurs and private legal entities. Find out if your tattoo artist or manicurist accepts Bitcoin as payment. In small towns it’s unlikely, but if you live in Moscow or St. Petersburg, this situation is real. The reason for this is ease of use. There is no need to contact banks, write papers to provide a terminal, or enter into an agreement to open and maintain an account. To pay with Bitcoin you need a mobile phone and the Internet.

Advantages of paying BTC for purchases

1. Unlike fiat currency, Bitcoin transactions are protected by a consensus mechanism using cryptography.
2. Bitcoin cannot be counterfeited. Despite the high degree of security of paper money, cases of counterfeiting still occur.
3. Bitcoin is issued by miners in the quantities necessary to carry out transactions. You can’t just print cryptocurrencies and then carry out denomination and devaluation - there are no such phenomena in cryptocurrency.
4. Transactions with BTC are anonymous, the owner’s personal information is disclosed only in the case of withdrawal of the cryptocurrency into fiat.
5. Bitcoin eliminates the participation of intermediaries in the transaction. There is no need to pay interest on transactions to banks and payment systems. In the world of cryptocurrency, only exchangers and stock exchanges keep a percentage when converting currencies. And the internal percentage of the blockchain for carrying out a transaction is extremely small.

In other words, due to anonymity, Bitcoin allows you not to declare income. Transactions with cryptocurrency are more secure than with regular currency. Hackers carry out attacks on cryptocurrency wallets, but they are rarely successful.

What is mining?

Mining (from the English verb – mining, which translates as “mining”) is passive participation in the operation of the blockchain system, allowing it to function normally.

You are literally sacrificing your PC's performance to help process transactions for other users. For this you receive a reward in the form of bitcoins.

But sometimes very difficult tasks arise. When many transactions are made, the blocks get mixed up and need to be distributed into a single chain in the correct chronological sequence. To solve these problems, large computing power is required. That's why people are going crazy and buying hundreds of top-of-the-line graphics cards to make their computers faster and mine more cryptocurrency.

Now even very powerful devices will take years to mine even half a bitcoin, so the mining hysteria has died down. There are only large “farms” left that can somehow still cover electricity costs by mining digital coins.

There have been cases when full-fledged research institutes and other institutions with powerful computers were turned into such farms.

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Disadvantages of using Bitcoin as a means of payment

1. Electricity required. This drawback also applies to fiat electronic money in plastic card accounts. In this regard, coins and paper banknotes will give a head start to any cryptocurrencies.
2. Transactions using Bitcoin are illegal. Most countries recognize their national currency as legal tender. The legislator of the Russian Federation followed this path when considering new bills on cryptocurrency, according to which Bitcoin and other coins are not legal means of payment. That is, transactions made using cryptocurrency are outside the legal framework and are not subject to the application of the Law “On Protection of Consumer Rights”. If you pay for an item with cryptocurrency but do not receive it, it will be impossible to prove anything in court. This gives space for scammers, swindlers and dishonest people.
3. High volatility of cryptocurrency. Volatility is price variability. A striking example of volatility is the story of American Laszlo Hynex, who in 2010 bought 2 pizzas for 10,000 BTC. At that time, the rate of 1 bitcoin was $0.5. Today, even taking into account the collapse of the exchange rate, 10,000 BTC costs $32,997,121.35. You can lose big on transactions using cryptocurrency or, conversely, win.

How does the Bitcoin network work?

Bitcoin is based on the blockchain. This is a gigantic structure of blocks, distributed across servers and personal computers of users throughout the planet. The last block stores information about all cryptocurrency transactions ever carried out. It includes the amount, date and time of payment, who received the currency, who sold it, etc.

It's sort of like a global digital ledger. This ledger is not owned by any member of the blockchain network, which makes the system itself completely independent.

And although anyone can make changes to the block, any change requires confirmation from the majority of investors. It is almost impossible to cheat the Bitcoin encryption system.

Bitcoins themselves are computer files that are stored in a digital wallet and used like regular money. You can buy something with it, you can make investments, or just leave it as savings.

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Russia and the rest of the world: comparing the availability of goods for bitcoin

To see how things are going with cryptocurrency in other countries, RusCoins.info recommends turning to the Coinmap.org service. It is a world map with geolocations of ATMs and establishments that accept Bitcoin. A similar service is provided by SpendBitcoins.com. A Bitcoin ATM will help you find the CoinATMRadar service.

In Europe and America, Bitcoin has become as common a means of payment as Visa or MasterCard. In Russia, unfortunately, not yet. The same goes for the neighbors. In Belarus in Minsk, Bitcoin is accepted for payment in an Apple equipment store, an automotive electronics store, an electronic cigarette and mobile phone store. Some private entrepreneurs accept Bitcoin as rent for an apartment for a day. In the regional city of Brest, Bitcoin is accepted at the Altair cafe.

However, in order for the payment to take place legally, the scheme is a little complicated: first, the owner of the establishment makes a card payment through the cash register, and the buyer already transfers the cryptocurrency from the wallet to the owner’s account. In small towns such as Molodechno and Baranovichi, it is possible to pay with bitcoin in cafes and online stores, but so far no one has expressed a desire to pay a check in cryptocurrency.

A striking transaction using cryptocurrency happened in Minsk in the summer of 2017. In the wake of cryptocurrency hype, an article appeared on the Internet that teacher Gennady bought a two-room apartment in the center of Minsk for bitcoins. While his peers were mastering “tanks” and other games, Gennady quietly mined bitcoins for his apartment.

Also in 2022, in Minsk they tried to sell a 4-room apartment for 30 BTC. We don’t know whether the owners of the apartment managed to find buyers, but the advertisement is no longer on the website.

How to find suitable stores?

Finding suitable companies and stores that are willing to accept crypto money is not easy. Currently, there are 3 main ways to obtain the required information:

• it is necessary to closely monitor emerging news;
• you should pay attention to signs and announcements;
• you are required to regularly visit thematic forums where the latest news and news about bitcoins are discussed.

The last option is the most reliable and practical, since new organizations and enterprises that accept cyber money are appearing more and more often, and this approach allows you to learn about most of them in a timely manner.

Additionally, it is worth noting that most often virtual money is accepted in themed cafes and bars, where programmers and online industry workers frequent and in the vicinity of universities that teach modern technologies.

User reviews about paying for goods in Russia with Bitcoin

Users have different attitudes towards paying for goods and services with Bitcoin. Frequent review: “Cryptocurrency is a pyramid”

For example, user Anellena writes:

It seems to me, or Bitcoin is just another MMM type pyramid.

But, in fact, the currency is a pyramid that is not backed by anything.

Another user “britnispirzzz”, on the contrary, predicts the decline of fiat money:

The era of cash is coming to an end. Cash payment limits are being reduced. Switzerland is thinking about abandoning cash altogether. We will come to this in half a century. Cryptocurrency is a mattress bank, inaccessible to the gaze of the state.

How to make money on bitcoins?

There are two ways - either you invest or mine currency.

In the first case, there is nothing fundamentally different from a regular investment in currency or securities. Go to the exchange, find Bitcoin there, create a wallet and buy a certain amount of virtual money. Then you wait for the rate to rise and sell.

In the second case, electricity costs will be high and may not even be recouped by the mined bitcoins. Therefore, all that remains is to invest.

Or is it not worth it?

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Can Bitcoin replace fiat?

Whether people will be able to give up paper money is a moot point.
Money in material form has existed for more than 2000 thousand years. Paper bills and coins are easy for anyone to use. Cryptocurrency is complex and accessible to few. And we are unlikely to get to the point where it will be possible to pay with Bitcoin in a village store. For quite a long time, people refused to receive salaries in paper envelopes and got used to the introduction of plastic cards. Utility payments are now available from a computer or smartphone, but queues at banks have not disappeared. Cryptocurrency is the future, but not everyone is ready for it. Great article 2

Is it safe to use Bitcoins?

The system itself is complex, but at the same time publicly accessible, so it is impossible to copy Bitcoin or create a fake version of it (they will not be of any value). All transactions are encrypted and verified by thousands of computers around the planet.

However, Bitcoin has several disadvantages that confuse potential investors:

• More than once, people have forgotten or lost passwords for their digital wallets. If there is no password, then there is no wallet. All coins disappear into oblivion.
• Fraudsters regularly create fake currency exchange pages and use phishing techniques to defraud users of cryptocurrency.
• Sometimes Bitcoin goes into a frenzy, and its performance on crypto exchanges drops noticeably, but this is true for almost any security, crypto and real currencies.

It is worth noting that in the Russian Federation they do not like Bitcoin, and the authorities regularly raise the issue of adopting a bill that would allow blocking the bank accounts of clients who exchange funds for digital money of any kind.

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