The dollar is reasserting itself as the king of global finance

Despite widespread global volatility, the U.S. dollar has reasserted itself as the ultimate safe-haven asset, completely deflating the speculative "debasement trade" that briefly drove gold and Bitcoin to record highs. | REUTERS

Nov 10, 2026

The world remains in a volatile situation: There’s unrest in France over its deteriorating finances and big political changes are potentially afoot in the U.S. and Israel. Then there’s the ongoing war with Iran, including increased attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz and Houthi strikes against Saudi Arabia. Yet, in the contest for best haven asset, here’s the scoreboard for October:

What happened to the idea that gold and Bitcoin were the new flight-to-quality beneficiaries? Maybe it’s time to declare the end of the faddish dollar debasement trade talked up by the likes of Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio and Citadel’s Ken Griffin, in which investors were supposedly jettisoning the greenback and flocking to substitutes.

Bitcoin’s slide worsened recently after hackers stole $6.3 billion from Binance in the biggest such heist in history, puncturing the idea that crypto is a reliable store of value. But the unraveling is broader than just one hack. Over the past year, Bitcoin’s slump has reaffirmed its not-so-secret identity as a leveraged play on the Nasdaq 100 Index (except, lately, it only tracks tech stocks on the way down, not up). In the gold market, retail investors have pulled billions of dollars out of exchange-traded funds tracking the precious metal, jewelry demand has plummeted to the lowest since 2020 and central banks have ceased to provide the ballast that they did from 2022 to 2024.

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