Topic: Bitcoin, safe havens and real estate in a foreign country (Read 171 times)

Sometimes it is difficult to be self-sufficient when the entire market is managed under a hegemony of the dollar, international marketing is managed under the dollar, I am sure that no transnational wants to know or receive Rubles, so for now what can Russia do before being self-sufficient? is to seek support in a market where it does not depend on the hegemony of the dollar, and this is China, China is the only country that has always been against this, to produce a safe haven for money, it is known that Gold is by nature , and if we go to a much higher order where it depends on the Internet and an infrastructure is the BTC, which is a totally deflationary economy, in this case when we observe the conflict that has been triggered between Russia-Ukraine, it is almost Russia vs. El Mundo, we have seen that the banks in Switzerland that were said to be totally impartial, stood in favor of the USA and left their legacy aside, so is there a safe haven? I see it difficult, not even the same money is a safe haven, if a world crash occurs, money will become just a piece of paper, its value is not backed by gold bullion as everyone believes, at least with the dollar, I know which is so.

I wasn't talking about him discrediting himself, but the lobby trying to make him to drop Bitcoin support. The media was just reporting what was being done. It's not like the IMF paid them to lie in this case, but IMO the IMF is a crooked organization that is pushing its own agenda, regardless of whether we see Bukele as a clown, or not. The same organizations that were trying to discourage countries from using Bitcoin are most likely launching those campaigns with slogans like "bitcoin is bad for environment" and "bitcoin is helping terrorists, drug lords, Russians".

Nobody needs no discredit Bukele on anything, he is doing that all by himself

First, he is the one begging on all fours and wagging his tail for the FMI to grant him 1.2 billion in loans, he is the one that secretly without making a Twitter post issued 400 million in bonds in December to cover for government spending and deficit. He is the one lying he will build the city with $500m when in reality the project will cost 14billions on the estimates, money he doesn't have of course. He is the one lying that Salvador dug a 200MW capacity well, something that was never seen actually in the world to date, and wow, turns out there was no new well, there was no new geothermal plant, there is no new mining gear arriving in Salvador and while poeple there pay the most expensive energy in the region,  the price per kWh being closer to what we have to pay in Europe while they keep importing energy from Guatemala.
Same for his bs of building a bet hospital with the profits when he is actually down $2000 on every bitcoin purchased while buying the "dip".

So if you're going to give Bukele as an example of media bias you've started on the wrong foot.


No, not going to work. Singapore has sanctions against Russia.
https://www.mfa.gov.sg/Newsroom/Press-Statements-Transcripts-and-Photos/2022/03/20220305-sanctions

I feel like the article is fake and meant to put people in this feeling of being cheated, especially now when there is a lobby in the EU that tries to ban cryptocurrencies one way or the other.
Keep in mind that there were attempts to scare president Bukele into submission from the IMF and then there was this whole narrative about cryptocurrencies not playing into the "we are ceo friendly" tune of the EU. Now when the main theme is sanctions, cryptocurrencies are again painted as villains helping those hated Russians buy things they shouldn't be able to buy.

Now first things first. Who says these people are not allowed to spend their hard-earned money whenever they please? 90% of rich people in Russia had nothing to do with this war and are being hit left and right by other countries and their own country going crazy.
Then there's the stupidity of that move. You are being hit by sanctions. Putin says you can't withdraw money, your rubles went to shit, prices of everything like stocks, real estate decreased drastically, your house is worth crap and nobody is buying, your savings in USD are being stolen by the bank and the only valuable thing you have that did not take a hit are those 100 bitcoins you held for years, so you decide to sell them and buy foreign currency (dirham) so that after the dust settles you will be a rich Russian in a foreign country holding fiat money that can be stolen again, frozen by the bank or confiscated at an airport, just like all the rest of your fiat was.

Do we have clear names of at least one of these billionaires?  If not, have you considered it is yet another attempt of the media to discredit Bitcoin as a safe haven and generate FUD?

If we put FUD to the side and take this story for granted.  There still are a few things to consider.  For one, they may not understand how Bitcoin works.  I know a few Bitcoin investors who have no idea how it works myself, and they put a ton of money in it.  When you do not understand your own investment besides the percentage of profit it brings you, you fear owning that asset.

Then, older investors, known as boomers, may see digital inferior to physical.  Maybe they are old investors who think real estate or cash is safer than something digital that, they say, 'may disappear at any given time'.

Have we considered that lots of 'investors' actually 'put money in Bitcoin' as in buying through platforms like Forex websites that do not even allow withdrawing?  As in, speculating on the price of Bitcoin rather than buying it for real?  For these kind of investors, liquidating to buy real estate really is safer than holding fake Bitcoin on a website.

Last but not least, there is a possibility that all these articles and tweets asking for a hunting of Russian billionaires Cryptocurrency wallets may have triggered a sell off.  Must suck knowing your wallet is being hunted.  I know!  If the wallet is non custodial, there is no way it can be 'hunted'.  But if you do not understand how Bitcoin works, you may be scared enough to sell.

Being a billionaire does not make you smart.  These are just a few of the scenarios I can think of.

-
Regards,
PrivacyG

The below youtube clip makes a case for real estate being an inflation protected asset.

How To Profit From MASSIVE Inflation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPQ0pttjinI

While real estate in dubai may not be the best location judging by future global warming and drought forecasts. Its deregulated and noncompliant atmosphere could offset those potential negatives for russians being targeted by global finance for the sins of Putin. Real estate being touted by many as an inflation protected asset offers yet another benefit.

Saudi arabia itself is under pressure from the international community, similar to russia. This was indicated by saudis reportedly declining phone calls from Biden during the ukraine crisis.


Which could make russian and UAE interests aligned.

I do not think that it's stupid Panic. Putin is delusional and there are people who are literally travelling out of Russia to a safe place to avoid being stuck in tbe country because they do think that they are happily going towards the North Korean agenda and soon enough things can get even worse.

There is no thing that may be called safe heavens, with continuous shelling and limited internet you think the old people would be able to learn how to use bitcoins in a war hit country like Ukraine or do you think that the Russians can very easily buy properties in UAE? And sell them there as well to make some money ? Their military is already being thinned out in Ukraine, with them loosing so many soilders I do not think that it's going to be a good run for Russia, other than nuclear weapons they might not have anything else at the end of the month.

Russians need to understand that they have to be self sufficient, they have to focus more on the community than anything, they have to give more credit to the local bread bakery with farm than gold.

People need to invest in their skills and at the same time be self sufficient not rely on import and exports. That is the only investment that one should follow right now.
{ Bitcoin is ofcourse cherry on the top, if you know how to use it, if you have it, chances are you can make a lot of profit }

Whenever we read about the word of safe haven we will think about gold and that's because of the price of gold in the long term as we all know none lose money from investing in gold for long term but there are many other options for investing and they can be considered as safe-haven one of them is real estate, people invest in real estate because they can use it and in the same time the money will stay safe from the inflation rate or they can give it for rent and make passive income while taking profiting from the money they invested, regardless of all that, bitcoin can be considered as safe-haven because just like gold and real estate if you aim for the long term investing bitcoin can be usually profitable investing for you.

Only them can totally know their reason for such decision, but i am thinking all of this is as a result of fear and maybe some propaganda spreading that there is going to be a crackdown on oligarchs who own Bitcoins/digital currencies, i can imagine with how things are developing pretty fast as a result of this war, with sanctions popping out left, right and center, this investors are actually believing (erroneously) Real Estate to be more of a safe haven from sanctions than Bitcoin. I mean for an investor who has always understood privacy and anonymity, a digital, decentralized currency should be much easier to hide, than a physical asset bought in your name.

With more and more sanctions, and more Russians running towards crypto, it is clear to me that those oligarchs will try to find the best possible method for something decent to get their money out. UAE could be a place to do that, or may not be the ideal place to do that, they are not entirely sure. I keep saying that Singapore looks like the ideal place to be fair, even one of the co-founders of Facebook ran away there to get rid of American taxes and sanctions and laws.

So, Russians and specially oligarch ones could use Singapore. There hasn't been any sanctions by them just yet and I feel like it could technically be a good method.

This news is appalling to me, The Russian and Chinese billionaires make so much money especially in London acquiring housing properties and hiding the identity. Maybe their past is hunting them. I really oppose the idea of anonymity in real estate purchase. Asides the money laundering involved in real estate, there is need to provide information that allow the passage of a property to another either through inheritance or purchase.

Maybe they have any difficulties with cashing out? If you have a huge stash of coins then you have to use a centralized service for exchange and get them frozen for unknown time?

Tbh, there night be a countless amount of reasons for such investments. For example: some project have a decent marketing team that convinced rich guys that real estate is a safe investment. Since Emirates are friendly to startups I'm sure they already have  some real estate / crypto service. So maybe just their sellers just did their job?

To find possible answers to why real estate in UAE can seem better than cryptos in a digital wallet, I looked at how UAE has behaved as a state during the ongoing war. Both DW and New York Times have fresh articles on how UAE is a good place for Russians to avoid sanctions now.
The sentence from the DW article sums it up nicely:
A NY Times article mentions another interesting thing:
So it's a pretty good place to hide from sanctions, it's fairly easy to get there and to settle there for rich Russians, it already has a strong Russian community, and a lot of property is already owned by rich Russians there.
So as an idea of a potential relocation as well as a business opportunity, it probably seems very attractive to Russians because it's very unlikely that any of their property in the UAE will ever be seized.
It might also be that these people, these rich crypto owners, aren't really fans of cryptos and only have their money in cryptos now because of what's happening to ruble and restrictions regarding foreign fiat. So they want to move into something more familiar, more 'stable' in their views. And that's real estate. It's very typical for very rich people in the Post-Soviet countries like Russia and, I must admit, Ukraine, to move their wealth into real estate, building or buying either a shit-ton of flats or a few very luxurious mansions.

In recent days I haven't travelled to Dubai. Few years back I saw the country filled with vacant buildings, and when I enquired it was said those are buildings that are being constructed to attract the tourism and a preparation for the UAE EXPO 2020. Maybe what we see with the Russians move towards Dubai is part of filling the vacant spaces believing that the price will increase in the future.

If they would be wanting to swap investments in Russia for those in Dubai, which is indeed a credible thing, why would they go through cryptocurrency?
Has the real estate there sold for rubles, convert rubles to crypto, then buy real estate with crypto, or sold crypto for USD to buy real estate?
They could have just done a wire transfer, UAE hasn't imposed any sanctions on Russian banks to date.


Might be, but I'm not buying it as a reason.


Ok, let's go with this scenario, which is basically about poeple who are running away from Russia because they might be targeted by their own men and decide to go to one of the places that are full of Russians to be easy targets for the next novichok dose. Buying luxury real estate in one of the most expensive zones that are full of your former comrades is not really a way of keeping a low profile, right?
And again, why the switch, why such a huge liquidation, if you're a guy with a lot of coins that have suddenly been forced to leave the country fearing your life you don't start swapping millions in fiat !?! A probably different point of view but I wouldn't, I would stay low for a while if I believed in BTC and held it for years, why the rush now in the most dangerous moment?

I tried thinking of a lot of scenarios why I would do the same, but every time I find flaws that seem not logical to me.


Of course, it might be an option for investment, but isn't it even riskier than simply holding your coins? What if the UAE does a 180 spin?
I understand selling real estate that might be seized, like the influx of private listing in Manhattan, but swapping a nearly impossible to seize the asset if you're smart enough to a house that can be confiscated while you sleep is not something I'm getting.

Also, to @all.
I would have understood poeple who would diversify assets, poeple who would be on the run selling houses in Russia, selling shares, buying houses in Dubai or India or China, but not poeple with tons of money selling their most secure asset for real estate that might come with huge risks and which makes you a sitting target, I think it's pretty obvious that everyone will think the guy who has bought a $2m flat is most likely to have at least that hidden somewhere.

If you want to invest any money in the Middle East region, UAE is the ideal option, but I doubt the accuracy of these reports, I have visited Dubai twice since last 25th day and I did not notice strange activity of demand for real estate from Russians.

Time now is not ideal for tourism, Expo 2020 activities are still going on, and therefore some Russians may decide to transfer their property to Emirates, because so far UAE has not taken any sanctions on Russian economic activities, but the percentage will not exceed 5%.

Cryptocurrency trading is still unknown and has not recorded a high activity, so the cases mentioned in the report can be considered abnormal or try to shed light on a small thing.

I see 2 possible directions:

1. Possible impersonation and attempt to scam somehow.

2. Actual crypto-rich Russians plan to actually move away from Russia, expecting even more sanctions or, why not, even get called to go to war. They may not be under the sanctions list themselves(!), but even if they are, they can easily get fiat from crypto under others' names and they go on just fine.


I think that you may have mistakenly considered that only the known oligarchs can be (relatively) rich (and especially in crypto).

I see this as not an illusion but the real fact that is ongoing, taking into consideration on the current situation in Russian whereby all the economy and financial aspect of their economy is capsized as a result of the ongoing war and the implications of the SWIFT ban placed, quite alright we can assume Russia does not expect the outcome the way its going and the investstor will have to find a means to deviate from the repercussions on their businesses in soughting out for alternative asset swap in a more reliable and stable economy region.

It could also be recalled that Dubai is taking some recent steps in cryptocurrency advancement and gives opportunity for cryptopreneurs to showcase in an advanced trading zone,  Also Dubai is well known as a centre of economy and business booming zone in the world, people will pretty prefer it than maintening an already delapitating Russia economy.


If am in their shoe I will also make such move, everyone tends to move to a more greener pastures if the current location and situations aren't favourable, those using centralized exchanges were already hooked down, while the independent privacy conscious users having access to their coins will prefer going to region where economy is stable and booming.

lastly, they prefer converting their digital asset (crypto) into fiat currency or any other physical asset probably because they have suffered great losses in recent time and could only get a quick recovery in the center of business and commerce UAE thereby seeking a new beginning.

I thought of other titles for this topic too

The world is going nuts!
What the hell is wrong with these people?
What the %^$% am I reading
Did my browser got hacked or am I drunk?
and so on

Browsing around I saw a piece of sideline news from Reuters in my feed:
EXCLUSIVE Russians liquidating crypto in the UAE as they seek safe havens

After a few moments of confusion, making sure it's still a Reuters article, not some usually crap tabloid, I've "learned" this:



Now, before labeling this as total crap and made-up story, which I would do especially because of this one tiny line:


What would be the logic behind such a move?

Ok, I understand that exchanges might seize your coins, that you might get blacklisted, that you might be unable to turn them into fiat but it's not the same thing as owning some real estate in a neutral country?
If your real estate is safe then so would be all your assets, and cryptos would still be far harder to be seized than a mansion or an apartment in a luxury complex, you could still find poeple who would do the exchange for you the same as you have found poeple selling you that real estate. Also, probably UAE is in a solid position neither side wanting to make them angry as they could tip the balance of power pretty easily with their influence in the Gulf states but again if nobody is planning on seizing yachts and villas there, why would they seize bank accounts or crypto?

Starting with the assumption that this article is indeed showing real events, can somebody try to explain the reasoning behind such moves in a way that I actually making sense? Or some "investors" are just acting stupid in a panic? What would you do if you were one of them?