At the same time, the Empire of Chaos cannot demonstrate raw power by bleeding itself dry in the black soil of Novorossiya. Dominance requires ever-expanding plundered resources, side by side with that non-stop printing of US dollars as a reserve currency to pay for astronomic bills. Additionally, borrowing from the world works as imperial financial containment of rivals.
But now a choice becomes imperative an inescapable structural constraint. Either keep astronomical spending on military dominance (enter Trump’s proposed $1.5 trillion budget for the Department of War.) Or keep ruling the international financial system.
The Empire of Chaos cannot do both.
And that’s why, when the math was done, Ukraine became expendable. At least in theory.
Against the weaponization of the US Treasury bond system – de facto monetary imperialism – BRICS incarnate the strategic choice of the Global South, coordinating a drive towards alternative payment systems.
The straw that broke the steppe camel’s back was the freezing – actually stealing – of Russian assets after the expulsion of a nuclear/hypersonic power, Russia, from SWIFT. Now it’s clear that Central Banks everywhere are going for gold, bilateral deals and considering alternative payment systems.
The Empire of Chaos has ruled, “No”. The Global South must prove it wrong. Venezuela was not that critical on the geopolitical chessboard as it represented just 4% of China’s oil imports. Iran in fact is the crucial case, as 95% of its oil is sold to China and settled in yuan, not US dollars.
Iran though is not Venezuela. The latest coordinated intel op/terror attacks/regime change attempt on Iran – complete with a pathetic mini-Shah refugee in Maryland – miserably failed. The threat of war, though, remains.
BRICS Pay, The Unit, or CIPS?
The US dollar now represents less than 40% of global currency reserves – the lowest in at least 20 years. Gold now accounts for more global foreign exchange reserves than the euro, the yen and the pound combined. Central Banks are stockpiling gold like crazy, while BRICS accelerates the test of alternative payment systems in what I previously defined as “the BRICS lab”.
One of the scenarios being directly proposed to BRICS, and designed as an alternative to cumbersome SWIFT, which does at least $1 trillion in transactions a day, features the introduction of a non-sovereign, blockchain-based trade token.
The Unit, correctly described as “apolitical money”, is not a currency, but a unit of account used for settlement in trade and finance between participating countries. The token could be pegged to a commodity basket or a neutral index to prevent domination by any single country. In this case it would work like the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), but within a BRICS framework.
Then there’s mBridge – not part of the “BRICS lab” – which features a multi-central bank digital currency (CBDC) shared among participating central banks and commercial banks. mBridge includes only five members, but that includes powerful players such as the Digital Currency Institute of the People’s Bank of China and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. Other 30 countries are interested to join.
mBridge tough was the inspiration behind BRICS Bridge, still being tested, which aims to speed up a range of international payment mechanisms: money transfers, payment processing, account management.
It’s a very simple mechanism: instead of converting currencies into US dollars for international trade, BRICS countries exchange their currencies directly.
BRICS Pay is a different animal: a strategic infrastructure for building a self-described “decentralized, sustainable, and inclusive” financial system across BRICS+ nations and partners.
BRICS Pay is on pilot mode all the way to 2027. By then the member-nations should start discussing a deal to set up a settlement unit for intra-BRICS trade no later than 2030.
Once again, that will not be a global reserve currency; but a mechanism offering a “parallel, compatible option” to SWIFT within the BRICS ecosystem.
BRICS Pay, for the moment, is also a very simple system: for instance, tourists and business travelers may use it without opening a local bank account or exchanging currency. They simply link their Visa or Mastercard to the BRICS Pay app and use it to pay via QR code.
And that’s exactly the crucial problem: how to circumvent Visa and Mastercard, under US financial system vigilance, and incorporate BRICS members cards such as Union Pay (China) and Mir (Russia).
Overall, for bigger and more complex transactions, the problem of bypassing SWIFT persists. All these “BRICS lab” tests need to solve two key problems: messaging interoperability via secure, standardized data formats; and processing the actual settlement, as in how funds move via Central Bank accounts bypassing the inevitable threat of sanctions.
