by Paul Goncharoff, The Duran:

I felt it was too important to miss especially in these current sanctioned and trade tariff times. Pioneering this effort is an American company called Relex (RLX), the world’s first cryptocurrency-based real property development and investing group.

This approach allows investment in projects during the development phase, resulting in passive income, equity stakes, or proxy ownership of property(s). Initial projects are based in Vietnam, Vladivostok (Russia), Cambodia, and Myanmar, which for various non-business reasons and external barriers have been politically shunned on the FDI scene of late, although showing strong, solid growth. Included was an on-site visit of their first large oceanfront development in DaNang. Among those attending were a broad cross-section of businesspeople from throughout the international community, investors, financial advisors and developers.

It is clear that businesses in a number of countries are feeling various and increasing pressures from their governments, banks and similar regulating/regulated groups to conform within ever-narrowing, ever-thornier investment opportunity corridors. This has been emphatically and clearly shown through sanctions, trade and tariff confrontations, as well as a host of other political and financially erected barriers.

There even was a consensus that with the onset of these vigorous trade disputes and tariffs, significant inflation is in the cards regardless of the Federal Reserve or other central banks tinkering.

Global free trade as we have come to know it traditionally is coming to a critical juncture of change, perhaps never to be as straightforward or open again, or even as it was 10 years ago, not to mention before then.

Commerce by definition is meant to be fluid and unrestricted. Money has no politics, it should not have – it is a field of openly traded risks & returns. Hence, a real race is on in every global market to find possibly untraditional, less constrained innovative and secure ways to do international business legally, securely and profitably.

Much was discussed at this gathering, which included executives from Vietnam, Ukraine, Australia, Russia, Burma, Korea, Cambodia, America, Canada, India, and the list goes on. One of the major issues were the trade and investment restrictions unilaterally led by US foreign policy and by extension the US Dollar, which are expected to become even more constraining over time.

Hence the very real and attractive role for cryptocurrencies and the blockchain when backed by tangible asset projects like property, infrastructure and enhancing actual business development.

There were and are a number of instances where banks declined to move US Dollars to one or another directed area, despite long standing bank/client business relationships. The reality of asset freezes, currency seizures and other similarly restrictive measures are expected to become the growing “new normal”.

In such an environment, any alternatives that can bypass these restrictions to free trade yet meet business and investment requirements, are gaining traction – quickly. Alternatives are not only sought by Russian or other “sanctioned” investors, but quite a few developed as well as developing economies as there is a feeling of seeing the “writing on the wall” of ever greater control pressures coming, mostly from the USA.

In watching the tug-of-war between the US administration and the Federal Reserve a goodly percentage of the executives I talked with are of the opinion that the White House will prevail and the US Dollar will be dropping noticeably before midterm elections.

The reasoning is that neither the US Government, not the US corporate sector can afford an extremely strong dollar when the current administration is deploying a new trillion dollar annual deficit regardless of a “strong” economy. A muscular dollar would make this magical juggling act well-nigh impossible, and would badly impact US corporations which receive nearly 50% of revenues from overseas.

This tension is happening as the US Fed needs the dollar to remain strong enough to attract capital in order for the US to be able to fund its deficits and debt issuance, but not strong enough to put the brakes on the national economy. From outside the USA many feel they are financial hostages to a global reserve currency that is spurred mainly by internal American financial self-interest and not the ebbs and flows of healthy, competitive, unregulated global trade.

Today alternatives are actively analyzed on how best to reduce the financial and geopolitical effects imposed by the United States and the US Dollar. On a macro level for example the EU is examining establishing an economic assistance fund to reduce dependency on the International Monetary Fund and expanding the scope of an EU-centric payment and settlements system to insulate itself from U.S. secondary sanctions over a number of “issues”.

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