The world has been quietly and stubbornly walking away from the US dollar and US Treasuries the last half decade. Now, that walk is becoming a march, and “quietly” is turning to “loudly”. Some in the financial community have been saying this was coming for years while they were being told they were dramatic, paranoid, or “misunderstanding global finance.” Turns out the global financial system, with the U.S. and associated hubris, has been misunderstanding itself.
China’s latest move has been about as subtle as a brick through a bank window. Last November it bought almost $1 billion worth of Russian gold in a single month, setting a new record. That followed October’s already absurd $930 million purchase. (For context, just a year earlier Russia’s biggest annual shipment of gold to China was $223 million). Now China has taken in roughly $1.9 billion in the first eleven months of this year alone, almost nine times last year’s total, and that is only the part they bothered to report.
The part they did not report is the real story. Bloomberg estimates Russia shipped about $1 billion of precious metals to China just in the first half of the year. The Financial Times echos what many have speculated for years, saying China’s unreported gold buying may be more than ten times the official figures. The World Gold Council numbers already show 23.95 tons through September. Analysts are politely hinting that the real number is much larger because Beijing is very intentionally shrinking its exposure to dollar denominated reserves. This is not some random commodities trade. This is a balance sheet rebellion.
At the same time, China and Russia have nearly erased Western currencies from their bilateral trade. Almost all payments are now in rubles and yuan. Their trade turnover has stayed above $200 billion for the 3rd year running. They openly describe their partnership as having no limits. Now, when two of the world’s largest powers decide the dollar is optional, the dollar’s special feelings do not matter. Gold is not being hoarded because it is shiny. It is being hoarded because Treasuries no longer feel like the risk-free asset the textbooks promised. Sanctions weaponised the dollar system, and the rest of the world took note. Every gold bar moving east is a small referendum on trust in US financial leadership, and the vote count is not flattering.
While this is happening, the US financial world is busy congratulating itself over a tech-driven stock market that increasingly looks like the financial bubble 101. AI companies are announcing $1 trillion agreements that mostly involve the same firms passing money to one another in increasingly creative circles. Nvidia invests in OpenAI. OpenAI signs a massive data centre deal with Oracle. Oracle buys $40 billion of Nvidia chips. Everyone books enormous revenues. Actual profits ?
At one point Nvidia’s market cap surpassed $5 trillion, larger than Germany’s entire economy, which would be impressive if it were not floating on a cloud of circular financing. HSBC says the AI industry will need hundreds of billions more just to keep losing money. This is happening while foreign governments are dumping the very Treasuries that fund the US system underwriting all this financial kabuki show.
This is the part where the long arc becomes obvious. The world is moving away from the US dollar as its unquestioned anchor. It is moving away from US Treasuries as its ultimate store of safety. It is rebuilding settlement systems, payment rails, reserve strategies, and trade relationships around that reality. Gold is the bridge asset in that transition, and China is sprinting across it. The polite version of this story is called diversification. The honest version is called preparation. The final nail in the de-dollarisation coffin will not be announced with a press release. It will look exactly like this. More gold. Fewer dollars. More trade in local currencies. More quiet adjustments. More Western pundits insisting nothing is happening right up until it very obviously has.
The trend has been evident for a while now. The data has been sitting in plain sight. Now the numbers are getting loud enough that even the denialists will eventually have to stop scrolling and start listening………
© DJM 2026
