BRICS Gold Buying Spree Hits 870t (2020-2025), Puts the Squeeze on US Dollar Dominance

Gold's back, and it's got a BRICS-shaped hammer. The bloc's central banks have been on a historic buying spree, snapping up a staggering 870 tonnes of the yellow metal since 2020. That's not just a hedge—it's a direct challenge to the financial status quo.

The De-Dollarization Playbook

Forget subtle shifts; this is a strategic pivot written in bullion. Every ounce added to BRICS reserves chips away at the dollar's monopoly on global trade and reserve assets. They're building a parallel system, one backed by a physical asset everyone understands, while the West debates digital abstractions.

A Physical Hedge in a Digital World

In an era of rampant money printing and ballooning sovereign debt—a classic 'we'll figure it out later' approach from legacy finance—gold offers a tangible anchor. It's the ultimate bearer asset: no counterparty risk, no central bank balance sheet, just immutable value recognized for millennia. This move signals a profound distrust in unbacked fiat systems.

The Ripple Effect for Digital Assets

Watch this space closely. BRICS accelerating towards a gold-backed trading bloc validates the core crypto thesis: the old system is fragile. When nation-states seek alternatives to the dollar, it legitimizes the search for non-sovereign stores of value. It creates a macroeconomic tailwind for hard, scarce assets—whether dug from the ground or mined on a blockchain.

The 870-tonne message is clear: the era of a single, debt-fueled reserve currency is under siege. Gold is the first front. Decentralized digital assets might just be the next.

China And India Lead The Gold Buying Spree

Major Accumulation By Top BRICS Nations

By 2020 to 2025, China had amassed about 370 tonnes, and this figure will cover the purchase of 225 tonnes in 2023, the highest one-year acquisition the country had made in almost half a century. India was the first country to diversify its reserves through various significant strategies, which saw the country add about 250 tonnes of reserves over this time, taking total reserves to 880 tonnes. Furthermore, Russia added an estimated 225 tonnes even though it had gaps in reporting, whereas Brazil had bought 20 tonnes, 15 tonnes in September 2025.

Central banks worldwide exceeded 1,000 tonnes in annual purchases for three consecutive years, and these institutions implemented 1,045 tonnes being added in 2024. This sustained demand for BRICS gold purchases establishes a reliable price floor and also signals lasting structural changes in how reserves are managed across multiple essential financial sectors.

Dollar Share Declines As BRICS Gold Reserves Grow

The de-dollarization impact manifests through declining dollar share in global reserves, which has dropped from 70% two decades ago to approximately 58-60% currently. Additionally, BRICS nations accelerated their reduction of dollar dependency in trade from 85% in 2015 to 59% in 2023, even as BRICS gold 2020-2025 purchases intensified. At the time of writing, these developments have transformed various major aspects of international monetary systems.

Mining investor Frank Giustra remarked at the Precious Metals Summit:

“We’re now, believe it or not, in the era of hard money. If you own paper gold, you do not own gold. When the crunch comes, it will not be there.”

Survey data shows that 76% of central banks expect gold’s share of their reserves to rise over the next five years, and 73% foresee a smaller dollar role. The World Gold Council noted:

“The IMF IFS data only reflects 34% of our total official sector demand estimate for 2024 – down from 47% last year.”

BRICS gold purchases continue to reshape how nations view reserve management across several key monetary frameworks. Through certain critical policy decisions, Poland’s National Bank has pioneered reserve expansion by openly pursuing gold to reach 30% of total reserves, and the institution stated:

“The scale and pace of purchases will depend on market conditions.”

What This Means For Dollar Dominance: Decline

BRICS gold purchases 2020-2025 show calculated diversification of conventional reserve assets, and the 870-tonne accumulation is an indication of irreversible changes in how states hedge against currency volatility. The de-dollarization drive has capitalized on the geopolitical tensions, the fear of sanctions, and the uncertainty of the economic environment to create several major financial architecture changes on the global front. Furthermore, China and Russia have about 74 percent of all the BRICS gold reserves of the total bloc and this provides them with control in the gold market.

Even though gold still accounts for just 5% of China’s massive reserve portfolio, these consistent buying patterns engineered by central authorities suggest long-term strategic positioning rather than short-term speculation across multiple essential market segments. Moreover, the BRICS long-term gold purchases in five years have eliminated large amounts of gold in the open market, and this consequently decreases liquidity and lowers the supply situation.

Central banks have optimised in their reserve structure through numerous key monetary policy projects to ensure that they make the most out of their reserve system to counter the inflation of the dollar strength. This is not going to end, and some analysts have estimated that the central bank demand will exceed 1,000 tonnes per year, and the effect should probably continue as countries develop an alternative to the US currency-denominated assets even as they develop parallel financial infrastructure with multiple key technological and regulatory advances.