The World Rethinks Money and There's No Turning Back

When a 70-year-old financial empire begins to crack, watch how swiftly the world rethinks money. 

For decades, the US Dollar stood unchallenged as the backbone of global finance as the international reserve currency. Despite de-linking from the gold standard in 1971, the Dollar maintained its hegemony in international trade and finance because of the US geopolitical clout. 

But in 2025, the mood in the Global South has significantly shifted. On a geopolitical chessboard riven by unpredictable tariffs, unilateral financial sanctions, and weakening trust, BRICS are no longer interested in merely hedging their bets. In fact, they are willing to rewrite the rules of international finance, challenging an order the United States has long dominated. 

Already, IDN Financials reported Sunday that global central banks purchased 166 tonnes of gold in the second quarter of 2025, marking a 41% increase from the usual quarterly average. 

And as reported by Watcher.guru on August 15, the latest wave of gold buying has been led by China, India, Russia and Türkiye. Certainly, global central bank gold reserves have surpassed 36,000 tonnes, signalling a structural shift as BRICS Dollar holdings continue to decline. 

Following the 17th BRICS Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in July 2025, member nations have agreed to build digital payment infrastructure and expand trade using local currencies through a series of bilateral agreements. 

The expansion to BRICS-11 – including Saudi Arabia, which Watcher.guru claimed on August 10, the country "maximized its membership completion in July 2025 – strengthens their ability to establish an alternative financial system outside of SWIFT (a global messaging system used for financial transactions mainly under US and European oversight). All of which demonstrate accelerated de-dollarisation among BRICS nations, as member states seek greater financial independence.

In truth, the one single country that has contributed majorly to this push for de-dollarisation happens to be the US. 

The US government have indulged in quantitative easing on numerous occasions, printing Dollars at the drop of a hat, to safeguard their own mercantile interests. Unilateral decision in 2022 to exclude the Russian Federation from the SWIFT network catalysed the process of finding international monetary alternatives to the Dollar’s hegemony. 

To be sure, this process is not an overnight revolution but a slow, reactive, deliberate restructuring of how other countries trade, invest, and settle their accounts. The drivers of the change are as much geopolitical as economic, rooted in the tensions of a more fragmented, multipolar world.