Russia is considering selling its oil and gas for bitcoin as sanctions intensify from the West

Employees pass beneath pipes leading to oil storage tanks at the central processing plant for oil and gas at the Salym Petroleum Development oil fields near the Bazhenov shale formation in Salym, Russia.

Russia is considering accepting the payment of its oil and gas exports in the form of a virtual currency.

In a news conference held on Thursday, the chair of Russia's Duma committee on energy said that Russia is willing to be more flexible when it comes to friendly countries such as China or Turkey.

The chair said that the national currency of the buyer was being considered as an alternative way to pay for Russia's energy exports.

Zavalny said that they had been suggesting to China for a long time to use settlements in national currency for rubles and yuan.

He did not stop with the traditional currencies.

He said that you can also trade bitcoins.

Over the last 24 hours, it has gone up 4% to $44,000. Around the time news reports of Zavalny's remarks first crossed, the price of thecryptocurrencies spiked.

The energy chair doubled down on President Putin's promise to require unfriendly countries to pay for gas in Russian rubles. European gas prices went up over fears that Putin's announcement might cause an energy market already under pressure.

If they want to buy gold, pay in hard currency, or as convenient for us, this is the national currency, Zavalny said, in comments that echoed the president.

The European Union is unlikely to follow the U.S. in banning imports of Russian oil due to its heavy dependence on Russian energy.

Nic Carter, co-founder of Coin Metrics, said that Russia is looking to use other currencies. He told CNBC that Russia had been preparing for that kind of transition since it started to sell U.S. Treasuries.

The country wasn't prepared for foreign assets to be frozen, according to Carter, who is also a founding partner of Castle Island.

Russia seems to be serious about moving away from the dollar.

Russia is the top exporter of natural gas.

Hard assets that could be used outside the dollar system could be converted by Russia.

Putin used to be against the use of the virtual currency, but now he is in favor of it. The Russian leader told CNBC that he wasn't sure if it could replace the U.S. dollar in oil trades. The Kremlin's top brass is considering it a form of payment for major exports. It's not clear if the lack of liquidity in the virtual currency could support international trade transactions of that magnitude.

CNBC explained the controversy over the coin.