LeapRate Exclusive… Keith Hilden is the founder and chairman of Relex, an investment platform that uses cryptocurrency to ensure transparency, accountability and the immutability of investment opportunities for the development of the real estate market.
Keith joins Leaprate today to let us know a bit more about his company and to discuss how cryptocurrencies will transform the banking industry.
LR: Hi, Keith, happy to have you here at LeapRate today. Please introduce Relex – Belarus – what does the company do, what competitive advantages it has, examples of products and services
Keith: Relex is an investment platform that uses cryptocurrency to ensure transparency, accountability and the immutability of investment opportunities for the development of real estate, which otherwise would be considered too risky or opaque. The Relex team makes investments easy and safe by carefully examining the partnerships that it approves by adding only those that meet clear-cut requirements to its portfolio. As an additional level of security and transparency, the RLX crypto token is used as an investment tool in the possibility of developing real estate projects that already comply with the strict standards established by the Relex team. By placing these transactions on the blockchain, the investment process expands to meet the complexities of the modern global economy: funds are easily tracked while maintaining investor confidentiality, paper problems are reduced by upgrading them to smart contracts, and investor capital is secured through blockchain contractual agreements.
LR: What are the specific challenges that Belarus faces? What is the major niche for developing a product and a company such as Relex?
Keith: Belarus in its current structural form possesses inherent challenges in the form of project investability, as well as low penetration of banking services as a % of potential deposit assets in the country. Additionally, many institutions in the country, while open for reform and progressive change, are legacy systems that do not possess the advantages of modern algorithm-driven financial systems.
Precisely because of this structural gap in investability and efficiency is why our digital transformation solutions address such a situation, bringing with it a higher level of transparency and accountability for projects and assets within the Relex system. Our identification of the problem, along with our proposed solution, has resulted in our collaboration with the Ministry of Economy and Ministry of Informatization, along with working with our first Belarusian asset project, the China-Belarus Great Stone Industrial Park. Yet, Belarus is not the only country that is poised to receive benefits from adopting a more efficient investment system; other partner countries we have worked with, such as Vietnam, find digital transformation of its economy an attractive proposition to advance its inbound-FDI targets.
LR: What will be, in your view, the biggest benefits of implementing Relex and what will be the greatest difficulties in doing so?
Keith: One of the biggest benefits of implementing Relex involve efficiency gains at the system-institutional level. The merging of cryptocurrency and regulating open-source algorithms together create scalable models that can be harnessed to result in digital transformation. Crowdfunding of assets within the system is achieved as a byproduct of digital transformation being achieved. Relex digital transformation architects address key issues to unlock efficiency gains in the digital economy, and creates digital transformation tools for mass use.
There is also a great opportunity for interested partners to open a standalone entity node in their country of residence, in which the digital transformation tools and open-source regulated algorithm will be replicated and adapted to suit the characteristics of that market. We laid this out initially at the beginning of 2019 when we encouraged the “McDonaldization” of the Relex model to expand to other countries, such as Vietnam and Canada. In this way, there will be independent organic growth of standalone entity nodes in other countries. These entity nodes will be able to access Relex digital transformation tools to act as system aggregators for the digitalization of economies of any participating country. We are very much willing to work with partners in their respective countries to bring independent entity nodes to the live-net- this is probably the greatest benefit to non-institutional types that would like to participate in a large way.
LR: Could you please elaborate on the experience of Relex’ team?
Keith: Founders (American/Vietnamese) and top management of the Relex team have experience at some of Asia’s top investment brokerages and investment funds, the world’s first crowdsourced consultancy from Israel, and top intergovernmental and scientific organizations in Switzerland. The team possesses experience working with institutional investors, funds, think tanks, and central banks, and has architectural experience in system construction. In the past 2 years, Relex has worked with central banks and governments, a Canadian real estate development fund, as well as Vietnam’s largest private seaport development, to name a few.
LR: How do you see the future development of Relex and why do you think it will be sustainable?
Keith: Future development is centered upon investment-centric solutions, with fintech leveraged to design the necessary algorithms and processes in which new digital transformation tools are created. A constant focus on continual improvement and periodic restructuring is beginning to yield benefits regarding access to large investments without the need for intermediaries.
To this end, we are carrying out a digital transformation of the real estate market and the institutional investment market. In so doing, fintech and new economic paradigms are arising, as economic functions transition to a new mode of interaction.
Through this process, Relex has become an institutional digital asset blueprint tool to realize a “digital country” at the national level, executed through the integration of resources and objectives, as well as creating the necessary infrastructure for said implementation. Along with a regulating algorithm, a stablecoin developed is a key tenet to enact this transformation. Regarding investment efficiency, these tools culminate to bring Relex to a new round and vector of development leveraging digital transformation to achieve efficiency gains in crowdfunding and cross-border FDI investment.
LR: What do you think are the biggest advantages of blockchain in helping transform the worldwide scene for banking institutions and users alike?
Keith: So far, the true power of blockchain has not been tapped and harnessed to render the truly great efficiency gains that the technology is capable of. People talk a lot about transactions per second, but slim to nil about increasing the actual efficiency ratio of investments and transactions. A stable value blockchain, when paired with a regulating open-source algorithm, will result in technology being able to harness the economic energy of speculation and drive efficiency gains into investments participating within the system. Already, the Ministry of Economy and Ministry of Informatization in Belarus is interested in implementing this, and other parties interested in implementing this digital transformation solution include the Belarus Currency and Stock Exchange, Belarus-China Great Stone Industrial Park, My Thuy International Port in Vietnam, and other global assets and organizations.