A recent study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York indicates that the decline in the dollar's share of global foreign exchange reserves is not a broad trend. According to IMF COFER data, the dollar's share dropped from 64% in 2015 to 56% in 2025.
Researchers identified China, Russia, Mexico, and Morocco as the primary drivers of this decline. The most significant portion of the drop occurred after 2019, with the period from 2019 to 2023 accounting for approximately 2.3 percentage points of the total decrease.
The study distinguishes between intentional shifts in currency allocation and mechanical adjustments caused by changes in the total size of a country's reserve pool. Analysis of 62 countries between 2019 and 2023 shows that most central banks actually increased their dollar exposure by 0.3 percentage points.
The report suggests that the aggregate statistics are heavily influenced by a small number of large reserve holders. While gold has benefited from diversification efforts, particularly by China, the Fed warns against extrapolating the strategic choices of individual nations to the entire global central banking community.
