The economic alliance of nations known as BRICS is reportedly preparing to introduce a new currency that’s designed to dethorne the US dollar as the world reserve currency.
According to RT, the new trading currency of BRICS will be backed by gold, a standard that use to back the US dollar for over 100 years, that is until the US abolished the gold standard in the 1970s under Richard Nixon.
“BRICS is set to introduce a new currency backed by gold, in contrast to the credit-backed US dollar, with the decision coming a month ahead of the bloc’s summit in Johannesburg. With the growing initiative, more and more countries are lining up to join the group.”
Russia’s embassy in Kenya also sent out a tweet claiming “The BRICS countries are planning to introduce a new trading currency, which will be backed by gold. More and more counties recently express desire to join BRICS.”
The BRICS alliance is made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. But last month a senior Russian official claimed that about 20 nations are lining up to join BRICS, which would make that block signficantly more powerful.
Earlier this month, the chief financial officer of the BRICS New Development Bank, Leslie Maasdorp, reportedly said that the economic coalition has “medium to long-term” ambitions to create a new global currency and challenge the supremacy of the US dollar, although at the time he said that BRICS was not yet prepared to establish a currency that would compete against the dollar.
The story of a potential aternative to the US dollar has been floated around for several months and if these reports are correct the launch could be coming as early as August 15th during the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa.
