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While Western markets fixate on rate decisions and gold price charts, a more structural shift is being sketched in the Belarusian capital. At the Fourth Minsk International Conference on Eurasian Security in early November 2026, Sergey Glazyev, State Secretary of the Russia-Belarus Union State, outlined a practical next step away from the dollar: a digital world settlement currency that could launch first inside the Union State itself, anchored in a high-tech hub in Minsk and linked to national currencies or a basket of commodities—including gold.
The message was blunt. Mutual trade within the Union State and the broader Eurasian Economic Union has already moved almost entirely into national currencies. “In fact, we no longer use the dollar, the euro, the pound, or any other currencies that have become toxic and are weaponized as political tools for pressure,” Glazyev was quoted to have said in a report by news agency TASS. Nothing, he added, prevents launching a global settlement currency as the logical next move, with relevant proposals already on the table.
From National Currencies to Digital Rails
Russian media reporting of the speech went further than the English-language summaries. Glazyev described the existing dollar-centered system as archaic—built on the issuance of a private world currency by what he called a joint-stock company, the U.S. Federal Reserve—and labeled it a giant financial pyramid that others subsidize. The alternative he sketched is a modern arrangement grounded in international agreement and a digital world settlement unit.
That unit could be tied to the national currencies of Shanghai Cooperation Organization members or to a basket of commodities that those countries produce and consume. Early experiments already exist in the form of stablecoins linked to gold or exchange-traded commodities.
However, this is not a curve ball. Glazyev has floated versions of a commodity- and currency-basket digital unit for years, including a three-stage transition that begins with bilateral trade in national currencies, moves to pricing of financial instruments in those currencies, and culminates in a new digital settlement currency.
The first stage is largely complete inside the Union State and EAEU. The second is advancing unevenly—China’s efforts to deepen offshore renminbi liquidity through Hong Kong gold and related mechanisms form one piece of that puzzle. The third remains aspirational.
India’s Local-Currency Preference
India’s position has been the clearest brake on any rapid BRICS common-currency project. At the September 2026 BRICS Summit in New Delhi, which India chaired, External Affairs Ministry officials stated flatly that there is “no proposal in the BRICS for a BRICS currency as of now.” Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal and others have repeatedly opposed a shared currency, citing concerns over dominance by any single member and a preference not to frame BRICS as an explicitly anti-dollar bloc.
Instead, New Delhi has pushed incremental tools: greater use of local currencies for bilateral trade settlements, interoperability of payment systems, and exploration of linking central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) among members. India views these as practical ways to cut transaction costs while complementing—not replacing—the existing global system. The New Delhi Declaration reflected this cautious language, stressing respect for national priorities and the absence of a one-size-fits-all approach.
On the ground, India-Russia trade itself has largely shifted: roughly 90–96 percent of commercial settlements now occur in rupees and rubles. The two sides continue work on smoother payment channels, including early discussions of digital-currency mechanisms, even as the overall trade balance remains heavily skewed toward Indian imports of Russian energy.
India’s stance explains much of the earlier stalling of Russia’s “Unit” currency idea inside BRICS. New Delhi prioritizes flexibility, sovereignty over monetary policy, and avoidance of any arrangement that could be perceived as challenging the dollar head-on.
China’s Parallel Track: Hong Kong Gold &Near-Total Ruble-Yuan Trade
China has moved furthest and fastest on the practical side. Settlements between Russia and China are now conducted almost entirely in rubles and yuan—approaching or reaching 99–100 percent according to recent statements by Russian officials, including Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. Bilateral trade continues to expand rapidly, with national-currency mechanisms insulating it from Western sanctions pressure.
Beijing is simultaneously building the liquidity infrastructure that would make the yuan more usable beyond bilateral corridors. Hong Kong is being developed as a major international gold trading, storage, clearing, and delivery hub, complete with a central gold clearing platform scheduled for full launch in early 2027, expanded vault capacity, links to the Shanghai Gold Exchange, and planned renminbi-denominated physically settled gold futures. Officials explicitly frame the gold ecosystem as a vehicle to deepen offshore renminbi markets and give the currency greater international reach without fully dismantling mainland capital controls.
In short, China is not waiting for a BRICS-wide currency. It is constructing its own convertible rails through gold-linked infrastructure in Hong Kong while locking in near-complete national-currency settlement with its largest Eurasian partner.
Why Not Wait for BRICS Consensus?
The result is a pragmatic divergence. Russia’s earlier push for a BRICS Unit currency ran into India’s resistance and the slower pace of broader coordination. China has prioritized bilateral and Hong Kong-centered solutions. Both Moscow and Beijing have learned to build working rails among willing partners rather than wait for full-group agreement. Minsk, already home to a crypto-bank experiment and positioned as a high-tech node for the Union State, is being floated as a testing ground precisely because it does not require BRICS consensus.
The approach remains incremental rather than revolutionary. A purely gold-backed global currency is not what was announced. Gold appears as one element in a broader commodity basket and through existing gold-linked stablecoin models. The emphasis is on digital form, international agreement, and insulation from political weaponization of the major Western currencies.
The Longer Arc
What is emerging is less a single “gold currency” than a layered effort: national-currency trade already dominant in key corridors (Russia-China near 100 percent, Russia-India in the mid-90s, EAEU fully shifted), digital instruments and stablecoins as interim tools, commodity baskets (with gold as a prominent component) as potential anchors, and physical refining and trading capacity expanding in parallel—most visibly through China’s Hong Kong gold hub.
The Minsk conference did not unveil a finished product with launch dates, reserve rules, or governance structures. It did, however, place a concrete geographic and institutional starting point—the Russia-Belarus Union State and its Minsk tech hub—on the table. Whether this evolves into a widely used settlement rail or remains a regional experiment will depend on technical design, partner adoption, and the ability to avoid the sanctions traps that limited earlier efforts. India’s preference for bilateral local-currency solutions and China’s focus on its own convertible infrastructure via Hong Kong gold both reinforce the same conclusion: the path to reduced dollar dependence is being built corridor by corridor, not through a single BRICS consensus currency. Minsk played a significant rol in world history. It served as the location where Belavezha Accords was signed in 1991, which eventually dissolved the Soviet Union. For now, the signal from Minsk is clear—Russia and its closest partners are testing the rails themselves.
