The economic analyst who claims Russia is about to buy more than $10 Billion worth of Bitcoin has responded to doubts about his credibility.

Speaking exclusively to Micky News, Vladislav Ginko said he is a “famous public figure” in Russia and that he doesn’t answer to the “trolls” he meets on the internet.

“My statement about the intention of Russia to put at least $10 billion of its reserves into Bitcoin stirred up the public, and some media outlets hurried to claim it was ‘fake news,’” Mr Ginko said.

“The most ridiculous claim was that Russia had denied wanting to buy Bitcoin.

“The logical question is who denied it? Russia’s President Vladimir Putin?”

Mr Ginko thinks not.

The initial reporting

Micky News was the first media outlet to interview Mr Ginko about his claims, before several mainstream media outlets, including the The Telegraph did the same.

Then came the flood of stories from other cryptocurrency news sites, claiming stories about Ginko were “fake news” and (perhap quite rightly) questioning some tweets on Mr Ginko’s Twitter account.

One of those tweets, shown below, expressed support for convicted Ponzi scheme operator Bernie Madoff.

I promise to fight for the freedom of Bernard Madoff, the true Satoshi Nakamoto. @realDonaldTrump be courageous, ask for the retrial of Bernie, he's innocent, he was silenced and threatened since he was too much aware of murky financial deals of Obama & Biden. — Vladislav Ginko (@martik) January 12, 2019

Another recent tweet predicted a $2 Million Bitcoin before the end of this year, despite the fact he predicted a $100 Bitcoin in May of 2018.

BTC touches $1500-2000 and will rise to $2,000,000 at the end of 2019 year — Vladislav Ginko (@martik) November 5, 2018

Micky was even questioned by one journalist about whether Mr Ginko’s Twitter account was a fake. (It wasn’t, we have spoken to Mr Ginko on Skype. You can read more about that here.)

Sticking to his guns

Mr Ginko, who says he’s a lecturer at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, insists the Kremlin is serious about cryptocurrencies.

“Between January 15 and 17 this year, the Moscow international economic Gaidar forum was held. Most workshops were dedicated to the cryptocurrencies topic,” he told Micky News.

“The prime-minister Dmitry Medvedev, the staunch ally of Vladimir Putin and the second person in Russia’s hierarchy, warned more than 17,000 forum participants ‘don’t bury’ cryptocurrencies because of (the) downward market trend last year.

“This passage reminded many attendees (of) the motto of any typical HODLer of

cryptocurrencies.”

Mr Ginko says the Prime Minister also asked people to track the cryptocurrency market on a regular basis.

“The vice-minister of finance, Alexey Moiseev, echoed the words of his chief. He stressed

that cryptocurrencies ceased to look as Ponzi scheme.

“He has also positively spoken about ICO as a new tool of financing for to run small and medium business.”

Protection from US sanctions

Mr Ginko again spoke about “new looming sanctions from Washington, (which) may paralyse transactions.”

“Russia has already made steps towards to de-dollarisation,” he said.

“The central bank has developed and launched a national payment system as analogue to SWIFT.

The economist says any payments in foreign currencies will be like walking in a minefield, and any transactions may be frozen because of suspicions raised by the US Treasury.

“The decisiveness of Russia’s power to avoid economic collapse lead to Bitcoin as a new class of assets.” M

You can read a full statement from Vladislav Ginko here.