BRICS Unit Prototype Launched: A De-dollarization Experiment with 40% Gold + 60% Currency

[Crypto World] The Institute for Economic Strategies of the Russian Academy of Sciences has recently made a big move—a prototype of the BRICS countries’ “Unit” digital currency has been launched.

The design is quite interesting: 40% is pegged to physical gold, and the remaining 60% is split equally among the five BRICS currencies (Brazilian real, Chinese yuan, Indian rupee, Russian ruble, and South African rand, each accounting for 12%). On October 31, the first batch of 100 Units was issued, with each initially pegged to 1 gram of gold.

But the market won’t let you just sit back and relax. In just over a month, by December 4, exchange rate fluctuations had already compressed the reserve basket’s value to 98.23 grams of gold—meaning each Unit is now worth only 0.9823 grams of gold. Its value fluctuates daily with the performance of the component currencies against gold.

To be clear, this is still just a pilot phase, not an official legal tender. It’s being pushed by some BRICS member countries, while others (especially in Africa) are still watching from the sidelines. But the signal is clear: the path to de-dollarization is already being paved by some.

Some KOLs caution against overinterpreting this, but think about it—a cross-border settlement tool backed by a mix of gold and sovereign currencies, even if it’s just an “experiment,” is in itself a noteworthy development in today’s geopolitical financial landscape.