BRICS and Bitcoin: The New Multipolarity

Are the BRICS countries betting on bitcoin? No, not as a group. The BRICS want to depend less on the dollar and are building their own payment channels and more trade in local currencies for that purpose. There is no common currency, and bitcoin plays no part in their official plans. Individual members use bitcoin all the same: since 2024 Russia has allowed crypto assets for payments in foreign trade, while China bans trading but still hosts part of the mining.

Plenty of headlines circulate about BRICS: from the "gold currency" to the "end of the dollar". This article separates the announcements from what is actually running, and asks what a world with several centres of power means for bitcoin. The role of oil and the dollar in commodity trade is covered by the neighbouring article Bitcoin and the petrodollar.

What BRICS is and who belongs to it

The term "BRIC" was coined in 2001 by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O'Neill for four large emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India and China. The investment category turned into a political forum. In 2009 the four heads of state met for the first summit in Yekaterinburg; in 2010 South Africa joined, and BRIC became BRICS.

At the Johannesburg summit in August 2023 the group invited six more countries. Since 1 January 2024 Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates have been members. Argentina declined after its change of government. Saudi Arabia has still not formally accepted the invitation but takes part in meetings. In January 2025 Indonesia was admitted as the tenth full member. Since the Kazan summit in October 2024 there are also "partner countries" that attend meetings without being members.

Together, these countries are home to almost half the world's people. Economically, the weight is unevenly spread: measured by gross domestic product, China alone produces more than all the other members combined.

Important for everything that follows: BRICS has no founding treaty, no secretariat and no majority decisions. Only what everyone supports gets decided. India and China are rivals with a disputed border. The Emirates and Egypt are closely tied to the United States. Iran and Russia are under heavy sanctions. That limits how far the group can go together.

The common BRICS currency: idea and reality

The idea of a common currency has come up for years, usually raised by Russia or Brazil. In 2023 Brazil's President Lula asked publicly why emerging economies have to trade with each other in dollars. Before the Johannesburg summit there was speculation about a gold-backed currency.

None of it was decided. India's foreign minister has said several times that India has no plans for a common currency and does not want to displace the dollar. The final declarations of the 2023, 2024 and 2025 summits likewise speak of trade in local currencies and better payment channels, not of a single currency.

The reasons are concrete:

• No common central bank. A currency needs someone to issue it and set interest rates. The euro took decades and a treaty with common rules.
• Very different economies. A commodity exporter like Russia needs a different monetary policy in a crisis than an industrial country like China.
• Mistrust. India does not want a currency in which China calls the tune. In practice, any BRICS currency would be dominated by the yuan.
• Capital controls. China does not let the yuan trade freely. A reserve currency, however, has to be freely exchangeable at any time.

On top of that comes pressure from outside. From late 2024 onwards, US President Trump repeatedly threatened high tariffs should the BRICS try to replace the dollar.

What is actually running: payment channels without the dollar

Instead of a new currency, individual BRICS states are building ways to settle payments past the American financial system. Two things are involved: messages between banks (so far mostly via SWIFT) and the settlement of the money itself (so far often via dollar accounts at US banks).

CIPS: China's answer to the dollar system

The Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) of China's central bank settles yuan payments between banks worldwide. It is growing, yet the yuan remains small in international payments. In SWIFT's statistics it stands at a few per cent, the dollar at around half. In foreign exchange, according to the 2022 survey by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the dollar is on one side of 88% of all trades.

mBridge: central bank money across borders

mBridge is an attempt to settle payments between central banks directly with central bank digital money. It was launched by the BIS Innovation Hub together with the central banks of China, Hong Kong, Thailand and the Emirates. Saudi Arabia joined in 2024. In October 2024 the BIS withdrew. The project continues among the participating central banks. What central bank digital money means for citizens is explained in The digital euro and bitcoin.

Trade in local currencies

The most tangible change is trade in the countries' own currencies. According to the Russian government, Russia and China now settle the vast majority of their trade in roubles and yuan. India buys Russian oil partly in rupees, dirhams or yuan.

This has limits. Whoever receives rupees must also be able to spend them. In 2023 Russia piled up large rupee balances it could hardly use, because it imports far less from India than it sells there. A dollar can be spent anywhere, a rupee abroad hardly at all. A common currency does not automatically solve this problem, and that is exactly why the dollar dominates.

Russia: crypto assets as a tool against sanctions

No country shows the situation as clearly as Russia. After the attack on Ukraine in 2022, Western states froze a large part of Russia's currency reserves, and several Russian banks were cut off from SWIFT. For every state in the world, that was a lesson: reserves in a foreign currency at foreign banks are yours only as long as others allow it. How central banks are responding is described in Why central banks are adding to their gold reserves.

Russia then changed its laws:

• Foreign trade: A 2024 law allows companies, within an experimental framework supervised by the central bank, to settle foreign trade payments with crypto assets. It has applied since 1 September 2024.
• Mining: Since November 2024, bitcoin mining in Russia has been regulated by law and is permitted when registered. In some regions it is banned at times because of electricity shortages.
• Domestic use: Paying with crypto assets inside the country remains prohibited. The rouble is to remain the only means of payment.

At the end of 2024, Russia's finance minister said Russian companies were already using bitcoin in foreign trade. How much is not publicly known.

This is not enthusiasm for bitcoin. Russia uses it because the usual channels are blocked. At the same time it shows what sets bitcoin apart from a bank account: a transaction needs no bank's permission and no account in a particular country.

China: trading banned, mining not gone

China pursues the opposite of bitcoin: capital controls, a state-steered currency and its own central bank digital money, the e-yuan. Consistently, China banned crypto trading and mining in 2021. The details and what the ban achieved are in Can bitcoin be banned?.

Two points matter for multipolarity:

1. Mining has not disappeared. According to data from the University of Cambridge, only a few months after the ban around a fifth of the world's computing power was again coming from China, in hiding. A state can make bitcoin harder within its borders, but it cannot switch it off.
2. Hong Kong goes its own way. It has licensed exchanges and, since April 2024, bitcoin ETFs. Beijing lets Hong Kong act as a testing ground without changing the rules on the mainland.

China's own answer to the dollar is the yuan, not bitcoin. A money nobody can control does not fit a state that controls the flow of capital.

The other members: a mixed picture

The remaining members take very different paths:

• Brazil has regulated crypto assets by law and runs Pix, a very successful instant payment system. It is working on its own central bank digital money.
• India has taxed gains from crypto assets at a flat 30% since 2022 and is trialling a digital rupee.
• The United Arab Emirates actively court crypto firms and have a dedicated regulator for virtual assets in Dubai.
• Iran allows licensed mining and uses crypto assets to get around sanctions.
• Ethiopia sells electricity from hydropower to bitcoin miners.

So there is no common BRICS position on bitcoin.

What multipolarity means for bitcoin

"Multipolar" means: instead of one superpower with one leading currency, there are several centres of power that mistrust each other. For money this has a clear consequence. Every state currency is also an instrument of power for its issuer. Whoever holds dollars depends on Washington. Whoever holds yuan depends on Beijing. Moving reserves out of the dollar into the yuan only swaps one master for another.

For such an environment there are two candidates that belong to no state: gold and bitcoin. Gold is proven, but heavy to move, and whoever stores it abroad again relies on others. Bitcoin is digital, can cross any border in minutes and has fixed rules that no government can change. Its supply is capped at 21 million and follows a schedule anyone can verify:

That makes bitcoin neutral in the proper sense: it favours neither the United States nor China nor Russia. For states that do not trust each other, that is a property no other digital money offers. Whether central banks will make use of it on a larger scale is open. What speaks for and against it is covered in Bitcoin as a reserve currency.

What speaks against it

It is worth keeping expectations sober:

• Volatility. For a central bank that has to support a currency, an asset that can lose a quarter of its value in a week is hard to hold.
• Loss of control. Bitcoin does not only serve states but also their citizens, including against the government's will. Authoritarian states want to prevent exactly that.
• Reputation. If bitcoin is seen mainly as a tool against sanctions, that can lead to stricter rules for exchanges and providers in the West.
• The dollar is resilient. Deep capital markets, legal certainty and habit cannot be replaced in a few years.

What this means for you as a saver

For long-term holders in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, little changes day to day. Whether the BRICS found a currency or not does not determine the value of your sats. Three points are still worth taking away:

1. Check headlines. "BRICS buy bitcoin" or "BRICS gold currency is coming" have so far always been wrong. Look at official summit declarations, not rumours.
2. Take the lesson of 2022 seriously. Frozen reserves show that balances held with third parties are politically vulnerable. The same applies to you on a small scale: bitcoin you keep yourself cannot be blocked with the stroke of a pen.
3. Neutrality is the core. Bitcoin needs neither the BRICS nor the United States as buyers in order to work. Its value to you lies in running by the same rules for everyone.