The Dollar's Share of FX Reserves Hasn't Fallen Meaningfully Since 2015
The de-dollarization narrative is everywhere — BRICS currency plans, central bank gold buying, yuan internationalization. But the dollar's reserve share has flatlined at roughly 57% for a decade. In FX markets, its share just hit an all-time high of 89.2%. The yuan's two payment channels tell the story: SWIFT share is declining, and CIPS transaction growth collapsed from 43% to 1% in a single year. The story the data tells is not a dollar in decline. It is a decade-old diversification that stopped, a yuan that failed to break out, and a narrative that has detached from the numbers.
4 Oct 20269 min read