The Great American Rug Pull: What Russia Thinks We Are About to Do with Our Gold

By Michael Kelman Portney

Introduction: When a Warning Is the Advertisement

Every so often a geopolitical story drops that is so loud, so dramatic, and so suspiciously well framed that anyone with basic pattern recognition can smell the performance before they understand the plot. In September 2025, a Russian official pointed a theatrical finger at the United States and accused Washington of preparing the most audacious financial reset since the invention of the modern central bank. According to Moscow, America was getting ready to use Bitcoin and gold manipulation to vaporize thirty seven trillion dollars in debt and start the entire monetary system over again from zero.

Western media rolled its eyes. The think tank class called it propaganda. Financial analysts chuckled about Russian paranoia. But there was one thing those commentators all had in common. They were all reacting to the words on the surface. None of them were looking at the mechanics behind the words. None of them were bothering to ask the real question.

What if Russia was not warning us at all.
What if Russia was promoting the very thing it accused us of doing.
What if the supposed warning was the sales pitch.

Anyone who understands kayfabe already knows how this works. And anyone who watches global economics the way a ten year old watches WWE is already lost. This entire story only makes sense if you stop assuming adversaries behave like adversaries and instead assume they behave like promoters who need the audience to believe the fight is real.

This is the great American rug pull according to Russia. And the deeper you look, the less it resembles a warning and the more it resembles the mother of all marketing campaigns.

Kayfabe for Nations

If you grew up watching wrestling, you already understand the foundations of modern geopolitics. Kayfabe is the shared lie that everyone pretends is true. It is the structure that makes the story work. The heel plays evil. The face plays righteous. The crowd boos, cheers, and buys tickets. The promoter gets paid. Everyone wins as long as the illusion holds.

The secret of kayfabe is that the conflict must look authentic. The stakes must sound world ending. The warnings must be dire. And every participant must swear up and down that the fight is real.

The louder the warning, the bigger the work.

In wrestling, a heel who grabs the microphone and warns the audience that a terrifying monster is coming is not trying to protect anyone. He is trying to sell the monster. He is trying to pump up the anticipation. He is trying to make sure the audience packs the arena when the monster walks to the ring.

When Undertaker used to warn the fans that Kane was coming to destroy everything, he was not sounding the alarm. He was hyping the act. He was promoting the inevitable clash. He was building anticipation for a performer who needed the audience to believe he was unstoppable.

That is exactly what Russia did with Bitcoin in 2025. They warned the world about a supposedly dangerous American plan. They delivered the lines with fear and outrage. They framed it as a threat to global stability. And then they did something very strange. They immediately began implementing the exact policy they accused America of planning.

If that is not textbook kayfabe, nothing is.

Russia’s September 2025 Promo

On September 8, 2025, Anton Kobyakov, one of President Putin’s trusted advisors, walked onto the stage at the Eastern Economic Forum and cut a promo that would have made Hulk Hogan proud. He accused the United States of plotting to rewrite the rules of gold, cryptocurrency, and global reserve assets. He accused America of preparing to shove the world into what he called the crypto cloud in order to erase its own debt.

He said the United States would move thirty five trillion dollars worth of obligations onto digital rails, devalue it, and walk free. He said we were planning to restructure the global financial system the same way the United States did during the Great Depression and during the severing of the gold link in the early nineteen seventies.

Western journalists nodded, wrote down a few quotes, and dismissed the whole thing as Russian posturing. They said Kobyakov was just stirring up anti American sentiment. They said Russia was attempting to undermine global confidence in the dollar. They said none of this was serious.

But they missed the one detail that makes the entire story flip upside down. Russia was already doing the very thing it told the world to fear.

Russia’s Actions Reveal the Work

Three months before the supposed warning, Russia announced a proposal to build a strategic Bitcoin reserve. Russian state media reported it in December 2024. Most Western outlets ignored it. That was the first tell.

Throughout 2024 and 2025, Russia legalized crypto mining, classified cryptocurrencies as property, encouraged cross border settlements using Bitcoin, and talked openly about moving away from the dollar. Putin himself said that Bitcoin was uncensorable and that no nation could ban it.

By mid 2025, Russia’s anti money laundering agency publicly confirmed that Russia was actively using cryptocurrencies and gold to conduct international trade. They presented it as an alternative to Western financial systems. They said they were building a new foundation for the global economy.

Then, after all of that, they suddenly decided to warn the world that America was about to use Bitcoin and gold to blow up the monetary order.

That is not a warning. That is a sales pitch.

Russia did not blow the whistle. Russia amplified the narrative. Russia made Bitcoin sound powerful enough to reset the global financial system. Russia validated the idea that Bitcoin could solve a thirty seven trillion dollar problem.

That is not what an enemy does. That is what a promoter does.

March 2025: America Makes It Official

Six months after Russia delivered its warning, President Trump signed the Executive Order establishing the United States Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. It was the moment the kayfabe storyline became policy.

The reserve was funded with Bitcoin seized from criminal and civil cases. The order explicitly said it would be held as a long term sovereign asset. The United States moved Bitcoin into the same category as gold. Permanent, strategic, and not for sale.

Then the administration escalated the storyline.

On March 24, Bo Hines, executive director of the President’s Council of Advisers on Digital Assets, said publically that selling United States gold holdings would be a budget neutral way to acquire more Bitcoin.

Russia accused America of planning to manipulate gold to buy Bitcoin and erase the debt. Then the United States said out loud that selling gold to buy Bitcoin was absolutely on the table.

That is not coincidence. That is alignment.

When Michael Saylor said the United States should sell Fort Knox gold to buy one quarter of all Bitcoin in existence, everyone dismissed him as a tech eccentric. Then serious political actors began repeating his ideas. Then the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve became reality. Then multiple states passed their own Bitcoin reserve laws.

Meanwhile JPMorgan began constructing the exact infrastructure needed to move United States financial obligations onto blockchain rails. They launched their deposit token on Coinbase’s Base network. They made it possible for institutions to settle around the clock.

This is what a financial reset looks like. It is not done with speeches. It is done with architecture.

Enter the Intermediary: Elon Musk

Now the plot thickens. Because if Bitcoin and gold are the tools, and Russia and the United States are the performers, then Elon Musk is the connective tissue that makes the storyline work.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Musk has been in regular private contact with Vladimir Putin since 2022. Not speculative contact. Confirmed contact. Conversations involving geopolitical matters, business interests, and personal topics.

At the same time, Musk is one of Trump’s most influential allies. He is deeply embedded in the administration through the Department of Government Efficiency. He has security clearance. He proposes blockchain solutions for government operations. He is the walking embodiment of the tech elite who stands to benefit from Bitcoin appreciation.

You do not need Trump and Putin to sit in a room together. You do not need a secret treaty. You only need Musk in the middle. You need shared incentives. You need visible signals that each side can respond to.

Musk talks to Putin.
Musk talks to Trump.
Both governments announce identical Bitcoin strategies.
Both governments adopt the infrastructure to support those strategies.
Both governments benefit as Bitcoin rises.
Both governments downplay the idea that this is coordinated.

That is kayfabe. You do not prove coordination. You demonstrate alignment and let the audience argue.

Why Mainstream Media Cannot Touch This

If a journalist treats the United States and Russia as adversaries, they look like every wrestling fan who believes the table spots are real. If a journalist claims coordination, they sound like a conspiracy theorist. They lose credibility, access, and prestige.

So they do nothing. They report events as isolated.
Trump established a Bitcoin reserve.
Russia considered its own Bitcoin reserve.
Musk talked to Putin.
JPMorgan launched a blockchain product.
Chainlink connected the global banking system to digital rails.

But they never connect the dots. They never ask if there is a reason all these things are happening at the same time. They never ask why Russia warned the world about an American plan months after Russia implemented the same plan.

Their silence is not evidence that nothing is happening. It is evidence that they cannot say what is happening without sounding unhinged.

Kayfabe works because journalists refuse to break the illusion.

What This Reset Actually Looks Like

The product is Bitcoin as a global reserve asset. The promoters are the United States and Russia. The intermediary is Musk. The storyline is conflict. The real objective is alignment.

Both nations want a system where they are early adopters of an asset that rises in value as the old system collapses. Both nations want a world where gold can be sold for Bitcoin. Both want a world where dollar liabilities can be restructured through digital rails. Both want early positioning in the monetary system that replaces Bretton Woods.

Russia gets sanctions resistance.
The United States gets a debt escape hatch.
Musk gets influence and profit.
JPMorgan gets relevance.
The global banking system gets new infrastructure.

The people who lose are the countries that rely on gold, the countries that rely on dollars, and the investors who never understood the performance.

The Reset Infrastructure Is Already Built

This reset is not theoretical.
It is happening right now.

JPMorgan launched its institutional settlement token.
Swift integrated with blockchain through Chainlink.
DTCC adopted blockchain for corporate actions.
Banks gained the legal right to issue stablecoins.
The Strategic Bitcoin Reserve became official.

The rails exist. The system is live. The only question is how quickly the old structure is allowed to decay.

How to Spot the Work

If you want to understand this story, stop listening to the speeches and start watching the incentives.

Do both nations benefit from the same outcome.
Yes.

Does the supposed warning validate the power of the asset.
Yes.

Does the accuser adopt the strategy they accuse the opponent of planning.
Absolutely.

Is there an intermediary who connects both sides.
Yes. His name is Elon Musk.

Is financial infrastructure being built that makes the accusation possible.
Yes.

If the answer is yes to all of these, you are not looking at a feud. You are looking at a production.

The Real Rug Pull

Here is the real rug pull.
Russia did not warn the world about America.
Russia advertised America’s plan for America.

They made Bitcoin sound like a nuclear financial weapon.
They made gold sound like ammunition.
They made the dollar sound like a dying empire.
They made the story irresistible.

And then America walked out and confirmed the whole thing.

That is not a geopolitical conflict. That is heel work on a global scale. Two performers shouting insults while handing each other the microphone backstage.

The match is booked.
The promotion is global.
The stakes are historic.

And if you are still wondering whether this is real or coordinated, you are the mark.

The rug pull is not what America plans to do with its gold.
The rug pull is that Russia told you the plan and made you think they were warning you.

They were not warning you.
They were selling you the show.