In August 2025, something happened that had not occurred in modern financial history.
For the first time, the total value of gold held in the world's central bank reserves overtook the total value of US Treasury securities held in those same reserves. Gold — a metal with no yield, no government backing, and no digital infrastructure — surpassed the world's most important financial instrument as the primary store of central bank wealth.
Central banks currently hold approximately 36,000 metric tonnes of gold. At prices above $3,500 per ounce, the value of those holdings reached around $4.5 trillion — significantly surpassing their $3.5 trillion in US Treasuries.
This is not a market anomaly. It is not a temporary blip. It is the most significant structural shift in the global monetary system in fifty years — and it is one of the most durable, least understood drivers behind gold's multi-year bull market.
For Indian investors, this shift matters in a direct and personal way. India is a central participant in de-dollarisation — and both the Indian government's behaviour and the structural global shift are working in the same direction for gold prices.
Makro tracks institutional positioning, central bank flows, and the macro signals behind these structural forces — because understanding where gold is going requires understanding the monetary architecture being built around it.
What Is De-Dollarisation?
De-dollarisation refers to the gradual process by which countries and institutions reduce their dependence on the US dollar — as a reserve currency, as a trade settlement currency, and as the denominator of global commodity prices.
The dollar's dominance was cemented after World War II through the Bretton Woods agreement, and reinforced after 1971 when Nixon ended dollar convertibility into gold. Since then, the dollar has been the world's reserve currency — held by central banks, used to price oil, and settled in almost every major international trade.
The dollar's share in global foreign exchange reserves has declined from approximately 71% in 2000 to 58.4% in Q1 2025 — representing the steepest two-decade decline in dollar dominance since the Bretton Woods system collapsed. As of early 2026, the figure sits at roughly 58.5%.
The dollar has not collapsed. It remains involved in 89.2% of all foreign exchange trading. It still dominates global trade invoicing at approximately 54%. But at the margins — in reserves, in bilateral trade agreements, in commodity contracts — its dominance is eroding. And when that erosion happens, the question every central bank asks is: what replaces it?
The answer, increasingly, is gold.
The Trigger: Russia's Frozen Reserves Changed Everything
De-dollarisation was a slow-moving, academic conversation for years. It became urgent in February 2022.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, the US and European governments responded by freezing approximately $300 billion of Russian foreign exchange reserves — dollars, euros, and other currency assets held in Western financial institutions. At a stroke, those reserves were rendered inaccessible to the Russian state.
This action was unprecedented in scale. And it sent a signal that every central bank in the world immediately understood: dollar-denominated reserves are not just an economic asset. They are a geopolitical vulnerability.
After the US froze Russia's dollar reserves following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, other countries noticed and began moving away from the world's primary reserve currency. A country that holds its reserves in US Treasuries at a depository in New York is, in a sense, renting its financial security to Washington. If the relationship deteriorates, the reserves can be weaponised.
Gold cannot be frozen. Gold held in your own vault cannot be sanctioned. Gold does not sit on a server in a foreign jurisdiction. In an era of rising geopolitical fragmentation — where sanctions have become a routine tool of economic statecraft — gold's immunity to confiscation has transformed from an abstract property to a concrete strategic requirement.
This is why central banks across the emerging world accelerated their gold buying after 2022 — not primarily for investment returns, but as insurance against the most dangerous risk in their reserve portfolio: the risk that their largest asset could be taken away.
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View Live CFTC Data →The Numbers: Who Is Buying and How Much
The scale of central bank gold accumulation since 2022 is without historical precedent in the modern era.
Central banks have added more than 1,000 metric tonnes annually for each of the past three years — more than double the average of the previous decade. BRICS+ central banks added nearly 800 metric tonnes in 2025 alone. Combined BRICS gold reserves now exceed 6,000 tonnes — approximately 20–21% of total global central bank gold reserves.
The individual country data tells a compelling story:
| Country | Gold Reserves | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Russia | 2,336 tonnes | Largest BRICS holder — also largest sanctioned reserve |
| China | 2,298 tonnes | Widely believed to be much higher — PBOC understates |
| India | 880 tonnes | Consistent buyer; recently moved reserves from London to India |
| Poland | Target: 30% gold ratio | Reached stated goal by end of 2025 |
| Turkey | Aggressive buyer since 2022 | Response to domestic currency crisis |
India's own behaviour is instructive. The RBI has been a consistent gold buyer, and in a significant move, repatriated a substantial portion of its gold from the Bank of England's vaults in London back to domestic storage — a decision that reflects precisely the geopolitical logic driving global de-dollarisation. India's gold reserves have grown significantly, and the RBI's reserve managers have been reducing exposure to US Treasury bills simultaneously.
India's Treasury holdings fell approximately 20%, from $234 billion to $186.5 billion, over the 12 months to November 2025.
In a mid-2025 survey by the World Gold Council, 95% of central bankers polled expect global gold reserves to keep growing over the next 12 months. Meanwhile, 75% plan to reduce their exposure to dollar-denominated assets — up from 62% the year before.
The Structural Mechanism: Why This Drives Gold Prices
Central bank buying differs fundamentally from speculative or investment buying — and this distinction matters for how it affects prices.
Hedge funds buy gold when momentum is positive and sell when sentiment shifts. Retail investors buy on fear and sell on relief. These flows create volatility but not structural price floors.
Central banks buy gold for strategic rather than tactical purposes. Unlike ETF investors who chase momentum, central banks view gold as essential monetary infrastructure for a multipolar world. They do not sell when prices correct. They do not rotate out when rates rise. They buy consistently, in large quantities, over years and decades — regardless of price.
Central bank purchases averaging over 1,000 tonnes annually since 2022 represent unprecedented official sector demand. This institutional demand is persistent, price-insensitive, and driven by strategic rather than speculative motivations.
When a buyer of this scale and persistence enters a market, it does not just push prices up temporarily. It establishes a permanently higher floor — a dynamic visible in COMEX gold vault data. The question for gold is no longer whether central banks will buy — it is whether the pace will slow. And in a world becoming more geopolitically fragmented, not less, there is little reason to expect the pace to reverse.
India's Specific Position in the De-Dollarisation Story
India occupies a unique position at the intersection of this global shift. It is simultaneously:
- A member of BRICS+ — a bloc explicitly pursuing alternatives to dollar hegemony
- A country with deep historical and cultural ties to gold as a store of value
- An economy with a structurally weakening currency against the dollar
- A nation actively settling bilateral trade in rupees with several partners (including Russia for oil imports)
India has been settling trade with certain countries in rupees, including oil purchases from Russia. India's active development of UPI for cross-border payments and rupee trade settlement are direct expressions of the de-dollarisation impulse at the policy level.
For Indian investors, this creates a multi-layered alignment: the global structural shift toward gold as a reserve asset is moving in the same direction as India's specific currency dynamics and policy direction. The RBI buying gold while India reduces dollar reserves is not just a financial decision — it is a geopolitical one.
When the institution managing India's monetary system is systematically accumulating gold, it provides a framework for how Indian investors might think about their own portfolios.
The Alternatives to the Dollar — and Why They Are Not Enough
If not the dollar, then what? This is the central question of de-dollarisation — and the answer explains why gold is the primary beneficiary rather than any specific alternative currency.
The Euro is the most established alternative, holding approximately 20% of global reserves. But the eurozone's lack of unified fiscal policy, and the ECB's own quantitative easing history, limits its appeal as a truly "neutral" reserve asset.
The Chinese Renminbi (Yuan) holds only 2% of global reserves despite China being the world's largest exporter. Limited convertibility, capital controls, and geopolitical concerns about Chinese financial infrastructure limit its global adoption.
BRICS common currency has been discussed at multiple summits but faces internal divisions among member states with divergent interests. No common BRICS currency is operational or imminent.
Gold has none of these limitations. It is nobody's liability. It operates outside all political systems. It has been accepted as a store of value by every civilisation in recorded history. In a world where no single currency commands sufficient trust to replace the dollar, gold is the only truly neutral alternative.
This is the deep logic of the current central bank buying wave — not that gold is a better investment than bonds, but that gold is the only reserve asset that cannot be weaponised, cannot be devalued by one country's policy, and cannot be frozen by another country's sanctions.
BRICS, the Petrodollar, and What Has Already Changed
The petrodollar system — the arrangement under which Saudi Arabia and OPEC nations price and settle oil in US dollars — was the cornerstone of dollar dominance since the 1970s. Energy is the commodity every nation needs. When energy is priced in dollars, every nation must hold dollars. This circular demand for dollars sustained their reserve currency status.
That arrangement is now fracturing at the edges. Saudi Arabia's energy sales have diversified to include 20% euro-denominated transactions by 2025, marking a significant departure from exclusive dollar pricing established in the 1970s. Russia sells oil to China, India, and Turkey in local currencies. India has been settling oil purchases from Russia in rupees.
The petrodollar is not dead. But it is no longer absolute. And as the structural foundation of dollar demand weakens at the margins, the structural case for gold strengthens simultaneously.
The Timeline: This Is Decades, Not Days
The most important caveat in the de-dollarisation story — and the one that distinguishes honest analysis from sensationalism — is timescale.
Reserve currency transitions follow predictable patterns across centuries. The British pound's decline following World War I offers instructive parallels. Sterling's share of global reserves fell from 80% in 1913 to less than 10% by 1970 — a process that unfolded over five decades, not five years.
The dollar's decline from 71% in 1999 to 58.5% in 2026 is significant. It is not imminent collapse. The dollar remains the dominant reserve currency, the dominant trade currency, and the dominant financial market currency. The US economy and military remain the world's largest.
What the de-dollarisation story provides for gold is not a dramatic collapse scenario — it is a structural, multi-decade demand floor that is building year by year, tonne by tonne, as central banks gradually reduce dollar exposure and add gold.
That is a very different narrative from "the dollar is about to crash" — and it is a more durable one.
What Makro Tracks in This Story
The de-dollarisation narrative is playing out in data that most Indian investors never see compiled in one place:
- CFTC Commitments of Traders — showing how institutional positioning in gold futures evolves as structural buying shifts market dynamics
- COMEX and LBMA vault data — tracking where physical gold is moving as central banks repatriate and accumulate
- DXY (Dollar Index) — the real-time expression of dollar strength or weakness, which inversely drives gold
- USD/INR — the rupee's movement against the dollar, which amplifies or dampens de-dollarisation benefits for Indian gold investors
- Institutional sentiment scores — daily analysis of whether the structural forces are accelerating or pausing
De-dollarisation is not a single data point. It is a convergence of trends that requires watching simultaneously — which is exactly what Makro is built to do.
The Bottom Line
The most powerful long-term driver of gold's structural bull market is not any single geopolitical event, any single central bank decision, or any single year of demand data. It is the slow, measured, deliberate withdrawal of trust from the dollar-centric financial system — and the simultaneous accumulation of gold as its replacement.
In August 2025, central bank gold holdings overtook US Treasuries in total value. 73% of global central bankers believe the dollar's share of reserves will decline further. 95% expect central bank gold buying to continue through 2026.
India is both a participant in this shift and a beneficiary of it. Every tonne the RBI adds to reserves, every rupee-denominated trade settlement, every reduction in dollar exposure — these are not just policy decisions. They are confirmation that the structural story behind gold's bull market is being written in real time, at the highest institutional levels.
Makro tracks the real-time expression of these forces — DXY, institutional positioning, physical vault flows, and macro signals — so Indian investors can see the structural picture as it evolves.
All data and market prices referenced in this article reflect figures available as of March 2026. This article is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Consult a SEBI-registered investment advisor before making investment decisions.