The Unbreakable Dollar

Описание: In 2022, the G7 and EU froze approximately 300 billion dollars in Russian central bank assets, with about 200 billion sitting at Euroclear in Belgium.

Every central bank reserve manager on earth watched the dollar get turned into a weapon in real time. If anything was going to trigger de-dollarization, this was the moment.

Four years later, the data shows the opposite happened. The dollar's share of global reserves is essentially unchanged when adjusted for exchange rate moves. The renminbi's share of central bank reserves actually fell, from 2.8 percent in March 2022 to 2.1 percent in March 2025.

Central banks did diversify. But they diversified into gold, Australian dollars, Canadian dollars, and Korean won. All currencies of Western-aligned democracies with rule-of-law guarantees. The world's reaction to American weaponization of the dollar was to buy more of America's allies' currencies.

Meanwhile, the supposed alternative payment system, mBridge, has settled about 55.5 billion in cumulative transactions, roughly 95 percent denominated in digital yuan. After the BIS withdrew in October 2024, only five central banks remain. It moves the equivalent of a mid-sized European bank's weekly volume.

The dollar comprised 58 percent of global reserves in 2024. The renminbi: 2 percent. The world saw the dollar weaponized and decided the alternative was worse.