How long will the dollar last as the world’s default currency?
1 min readThe BRICS countries have been pursuing a wide range of initiatives to decrease their dependence on the dollar. Over the past year, Russia, China and Brazil have turned to greater use of non-dollar currencies in their cross-border transactions. Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are actively exploring dollar alternatives. And central banks have sought to shift more of their currency reserves away from the dollar and into gold. All the BRICS nations have been critical of the dollar’s dominance for different reasons. Russian officials have been championing de-dollarization to ease the pain from sanctions. Because of sanctions, Russian banks have been unable to use SWIFT, the global messaging system that enables bank transactions. And the West froze Russia’s US$330 billion in reserves last year.