Markets · Issue 01
The dollar is slipping, not falling
The US dollar’s share of official FX reserves is 57.1%. It was 65% a decade ago. Gold has stolen the headlines; the euro is still 20%. This is diversification at glacial speed.
- US dollar
- Euro
- Other currencies
- US dollar share of allocated FX reserves, 2026Q1
- 57.1%
- Euro share, same print
- 20%
- World FX reserves, 2025Q4
- $13.1tn
- Dollar share since 2016
- −8pp
Eight points in ten years is not a regime change
IMF COFER for 2026Q1, published 1 July: the dollar is 57.13% of allocated foreign-exchange reserves, up from 56.42% in 2025Q4. The euro is about 20%. Total FX reserves were $13.14 trillion at end-2025. A decade ago the dollar’s share was in the mid-sixties. The line of descent is real, and it is slow. Half of the latest quarterly bounce was a valuation effect from a firmer dollar — the IMF has been at pains to say so. Dedollarisation as a speech is not the same as dedollarisation as a time series.
The competitor is gold, not the euro
The euro has been 19–21% for a decade. The yuan is still a rounding error in COFER. What actually moved official balance sheets is gold, which is why Hard-money reserves sits next to this chart: price, not dumping of Treasuries, is what lifted gold’s share of total reserves past US Treasuries in 2025. After the immobilisation of Russian reserves in 2022, central banks bought metal. They did not, in the aggregate, sell the dollar. That is the tell. Insurance was added. The operating system was not replaced.
The long view is still a dollar system with more hedges
Pair this with The $348 trillion ledger. A world that is more indebted, more fragmented and more armed still invoices, borrows and clears in dollars because the alternative is a committee. The investing implication is not ‘short the dollar’. It is: some gold, some local-currency duration where the sovereign is current, a respect for the fact that a 57% share can leak another five points without the system flipping, and a refusal to build a 2030 portfolio that assumes a yuan reserve standard. Glacial is the word. Trade it as glacial.
Investing lens
Horizon 7–20 years · Educational, not advice
The dollar’s reserve share leaks; it does not collapse. Own a hedge (gold, selected non-US duration) sized for a 50s-share dollar, not for a 2020s-share funeral.
Where the map points
- Allocated gold as the official-sector rhyme
- A measured non-US quality-duration sleeve
- Avoid a concentrated ‘dedollarisation’ equity basket
- Do not confuse a COFER tenth-point with a trade
What can break it
- A US fiscal accident that actually accelerates the leak
- Valuation effects that reverse a year’s share move in a quarter
- Policy that turns gold’s bid off as fast as it turned it on
CHART does not recommend securities, funds or trades. Figures can be revised by their publishers. Do your own research and consider regulated advice before allocating capital.
Sources
Every headline number traces to a named publisher. Contextual sources inform the essay, not the key stat.
- 01PrimaryInternational Monetary Fund2026-07-01Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves, 2026Q1
US dollar share of allocated FX reserves 57.13% in 2026Q1, up from 56.42% in 2025Q4. Euro ~20%.
- 02CorroboratedInternational Monetary Fund2026-03-27Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves, 2025Q4
Dollar 56.77% in 2025Q4; euro 20.25%. Total FX reserves $13.14 trillion.
- 03PrimaryWorld Gold Council2026-07-30Gold Demand Trends Q2 2026 — Central banks
Net official-sector purchases 289 tonnes in Q2 2026.
Keep reading
Hard money, soft reserves
Central banks have been buying on the order of 1,000 tonnes of gold a year. Valuation, not tonnes, did most of the $3 trillion mark-up.
$4.5 tn
Official gold holdings, 2025 (IMF)
The $348 trillion ledger
Private and public debt set a record in 2025. Sovereign debt is heading back to 100% of world GDP — earlier than the IMF thought.
$348 tn
Global debt stock, end-2025 (IIF)
The rearmament decade
World military spending hit $2.89 trillion in 2025. America spent less. Europe and Asia spent enough more to keep the global total rising.
$2.89 tn
World military expenditure, 2025