De-Dollarization and Gold: What Investors Need to Know

De-dollarization is not a conspiracy theory. It is a documented process happening in real time, recorded in central bank data, Treasury reports, and gold market flows. The European Central Bank has confirmed that gold has overtaken U.S. Treasury bonds as the number one reserve asset held by the world’s central banks. This shift has enormous implications for investors.

As we explain in our full review of the BTM Gold War presentation, Dylan Jovine’s thesis rests on the idea that the dollar’s two historical anchors have both failed, and that a third gold revaluation is already underway.

The Dollar’s Two Anchors

The U.S. dollar has never stood on its own. For every day of its reign as the world’s money, it has stood on an anchor. When the anchor fails, the price of gold is rewritten, and a small group of investors gets breathtakingly rich while ordinary savers pay the bill.

Anchor one was gold. After World War II, the United States held two-thirds of all monetary gold on Earth. That mountain of metal is why 44 nations gathered at Bretton Woods in 1944 and handed the dollar the throne of the world. Not because they loved America. Because America had the gold. By 1971, more than half of that hoard’s dollar value had drained away, and Nixon slammed the gold window shut.

Anchor two was oil. A handshake with Saudi Arabia made the dollar the mandatory currency of global energy trade. Any nation that wanted to keep the lights on had to hold dollars and park those dollars in U.S. debt. That single arrangement let America borrow $39 trillion. For 50 years, it held.

Then, in February 2022, one signature cut the chain.

The Freeze That Changed Everything

When Washington froze roughly $300 billion belonging to Russia’s central bank, every finance minister on Earth learned the same lesson at the same moment: money parked in the American system is not yours. It is a permission slip, and permission can be revoked.

What happened next was not covered on the evening news. Central banks began the largest official gold accumulation since records began in 1950, over a thousand tonnes a year, roughly double the pace of the entire previous decade. And they did it in the dark. In 2022 alone, two-thirds of official gold purchases, 741 tonnes, were never publicly reported. The buyers hid.

Russia’s gold reserves surged 72 percent in value, a $96 billion gain that quietly offset a third of everything the freeze took. Every rival government on the planet watched that math and reached the same conclusion: gold beat the freeze.

China’s Four-Move Escape

China has been executing the most systematic escape from the dollar system. Jovine documents four moves, each recorded in official data.

First, China dumped U.S. Treasury debt from $1.32 trillion to roughly $659 billion. Cut in half. Second, China’s central bank bought gold for 20 straight months, its longest streak in at least 10 years, including its biggest purchase since 2023 during gold’s worst quarterly drop in 13 years. Third, Beijing hides the true count. Goldman Sachs estimates China’s real buying at 4.8 times the official figure of 2,313 tonnes. Fourth, China opened a Shanghai Gold Exchange vault in Hong Kong that settles gold contracts priced in yuan, with expansion planned for Singapore, Zurich, and Dubai.

For more detail on China’s strategy, see our article on China gold reserves.

The Crossover Moment

The European Central Bank has confirmed that gold has overtaken U.S. Treasury bonds as the number one reserve asset held by the world’s central banks. Twenty-seven percent of global reserves now sit in gold. Twenty-two percent in U.S. debt. In the early 2010s, gold was less than 13 percent and U.S. debt was upwards of 30 percent.

The value of gold in foreign central bank vaults is approaching $4 trillion, quadruple what it was a decade ago. The latest survey of the world’s reserve managers found a record number planning to add gold, and not one planning to reduce.

The 96-to-1 Gap

At the center of the de-dollarization story is a number most Americans have never heard: $42.22. That is the statutory price at which the U.S. Treasury values its 261.5 million ounces of gold. Set by Congress in 1973 and never updated. Total book value: about $11 billion. At today’s market price near $4,000, the same metal is worth over $1 trillion. That is a 96-to-1 gap between what the law says America’s gold is worth and what it is actually worth.

Jovine argues this gap cannot persist. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on camera in February 2025: “We’re going to monetize the asset side of the U.S. balance sheet for the American people.” The Federal Reserve published revaluation research studying how five governments took gains on their gold and turned them into spendable money. Congress is advancing a gold audit bill. For more on this concept, see our analysis of the gold revaluation thesis.

What It Means for Investors

The de-dollarization trend creates a structural floor under gold prices. Central banks are the most conservative money on Earth. When they move from dollars to gold at record pace, it is not speculation. It is policy.

For investors who want exposure, Jovine gives away Kinross Gold (KGC), a major American producer trading near 12 times earnings with a Wall Street price target of $40.24. For more, see our Kinross Gold analysis. For the broader context of how a dollar collapse could play out, see our article on what would happen if the dollar collapses.

De-dollarization is not coming. It is here. The question is whether you are positioned on the paying side or the collecting side.

This is not financial advice. Always do your own research before investing.