Gold’s 30-Year Milestone Signals Global De-Dollarization — Is Bitcoin Next?

• Global central banks now own more gold than the US Dollar for the first time since the 1990s. 
• An analyst has stated that the price of Bitcoin (BTC) could reach $188k. 

The US Dollar (USD) appears to be in big trouble, as foreign central banks are increasingly embracing gold, as highlighted in our recent coverage. According to a report disclosed by the World Gold Council and shared by Barchart, these banks now own more gold than the USD for the first time in 30 years.

One interesting observation is that the purchasing streak and momentum are not slowing down, as net 19 tonnes of gold were acquired in August 2025 alone. In July, 10 tonnes were purchased. Technically, these central Banks are expected to have a collective purchase of 900 tonnes of gold in 2025 alone. When this happens, it would be the fourth consecutive year the total purchase of central banks has exceeded twice the long-term average.

Already, 830 tonnes of gold have been bought by global central banks this year. 1,080, 1,051, and 1,089 tonnes were reportedly acquired in 2022, 2023, and 2024, respectively. The World Gold Council’s Central Bank Gold Reserves Survey 2025 has also noted that 76% of central banks could hold a high proportion of gold in five years. Meanwhile, the USD share in global reserves is expected to decline by 73%.

More About the Central Banks’ Interest in Gold and Bitcoin’s Future

According to The Kobeissi Letter, the first half of the year saw 23 countries increase their reserves. Explaining why this means a lot, The Kobeissi Letter indicated that Central Banks were known for being net sellers of gold for 21 consecutive years before 2010. Since then, it has recorded more than 10 years of consecutive annual purchases, representing its longest streak. As noted in our recent article, it just became the first asset to hit $30 trillion in market cap.

While many have attributed this acquisition trend to its recognition as a traditional safe haven, others believe that this is purely a de-dollarization effort. According to the Chief Economist at Informerics Ratings Manoranjan Sharma, gold provides protection from sanctions.

Similar sentiment has also been echoed by macro researcher Sunil Reddy. Fascinatingly, Crypto investor Lark Davis believes that Bitcoin (BTC) could also take advantage of the situation as it rose by 3% last week as gold declined by 5% to record its steepest one-day fall since 2013.

According to Davis, if Bitcoin absorbs just 1% of gold’s market cap, it could rise to $134k. Absorbing 3% would send the price to $188k. This comes following a recent Deutsche Bank report, predicting that Bitcoin and gold could be central Bank reserve assets by 2030, as discussed earlier.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at $115k after surging by 3% in the last 24 hours.

As mentioned in our previous news brief, BitMine chairman Tom Lee believes that Bitcoin could reach $250k this cycle. 10x Research’s Markus Thielen also argues that $160k is a more realistic target, as also indicated in our earlier analysis.