Following US President Donald Trump’s 2025 executive order establishing a strategic Bitcoin reserve, private companies, investment banks, and scholars have begun urging major central banks to consider doing the same. Trump’s nominee for US Federal Reserve chair, Kevin Warsh, echoed this sentiment in an interview last year, describing Bitcoin as the “new gold”.

China and many large emerging markets have long recognised the risks of excessive reliance on the US dollar. Efforts to reduce that dependence have helped drive the recent surge in gold prices, which have risen by roughly 65% ov...