On the petrodollar level, although the US dollar has continuously restricted Iran's oil export in the past few months and cut off the connection between its central bank and the SWIFT international financial payment system, Iran's oil export has not stopped, and non-US dollar currencies such as RMB and Euro have been used in this process.
For example, the American media reported not long ago that India may use the Indian Rupee payment system to pay a large amount of Iranian imported crude oil through private channels. Another example is Venezuela, another oil country limited by the US dollar. A few weeks ago, it proposed to Indian buyers to trade oil with Petro in Venezuela, giving Indian buyers a 30% discount on the market price. According to the analysis, this is very attractive to Indian buyers, and from the phenomenon that Venezuelan tankers have been transported to the Asian market for more than a year, Indian buyers are likely to have completed relevant transactions and secretly purchased Venezuela.
Not only that, before the US dollar opened financial restrictions on Iran, Iran had stored more than 20 million barrels of crude oil in the bonded warehouse in Dalian in advance, and then decided which country to sell the crude oil to. According to Reuters's earlier report citing Luft data, Iran sent a record amount of oil to China. During the 65,438+08 months up to March this year, Iranian oil sellers have continuously delivered about 20 million tons of oil to the China market (please note that the measurement unit of foreign media here is different from before). According to reports, the above-mentioned oil transactions in Iran were also completed in RMB and Euro.
All these phenomena show that the era of no oil without dollars has actually become a thing of the past. With the natural reduction of the share of US dollar in the settlement of oil and other commodities, the development and replacement of US dollar by sovereign cryptocurrencies, including a series of oil countries, is also accelerating.
The new change is that the Central Bank of Venezuela announced that it will launch Venezuela's own sovereign digital currency-Digital Bolivarian in June of 5438+00. And delete the six zeros in the original bolivar. At the same time, Digital Bolivar will use SMS-based system to make payments and transfers between users. Venezuela's central bank believes that the introduction of digital currency will help to restore Venezuela's economy. This is another new change in digital currency after the introduction of Petro based on Venezuelan oil endorsement.
It is worth noting that Venezuela has signed contracts with some global businesses to sell oil, steel and aluminum, which has become an alternative financial means for the US dollar. In addition, a few weeks ago, Venezuela called on oil countries around the world to use RMB to price, trade and settle oil, so as to replace the monopoly position of the US dollar on oil. Credit Suisse predicts that Venezuela's economy will grow by 4% in 20021year, which will be the first growth year since 20 13. According to the analysis, this is also the change of Venezuela's economy from poor to rich after breaking through the dollar limit.
Similar to Venezuela's efforts to develop its own sovereign cryptocurrency, Iran is also constantly advancing the process of sovereign cryptocurrency based on gold endorsement. Up to now, Iran has signed intention agreements with Germany, France, Britain, Switzerland and other countries to use cryptocurrency for commodity trading. This means that many developed countries, such as Germany, France and Britain, are also trying to bypass the dollar and trade commodities such as oil. This seems to be another evidence that Iran's economy has changed from poor to rich and broken through the dollar limit. In fact, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England, the Swiss National Bank and other central banks have jointly established a cryptocurrency group a few months ago, which is another key signal for developed countries to collectively send dollars.
Not only that, in the process of dollarization in Iran, a big oil country, a few months ago, the foreign exchange website under the Iranian central bank officially announced that RMB and Euro would be listed as the main foreign exchange currencies to replace the foreign exchange status of the US dollar. Then, Iran announced the change of the national currency and officially changed the Rial to Tuman. It is reported that Tuman will anchor the RMB exchange rate. This is not difficult to understand. As mentioned above, many oil transactions in Iran use RMB and Euro. In the Asian market, the Nikkei Asian Review believes that it is best for Asia to trade oil in RMB and Japanese yen.
Obviously, this is a clear signal that petrodollars are facing an impact. At the same time, according to mark carney, former governor of the Bank of England, a few weeks ago, crude oil RMB futures provided a new currency choice for commodity trading. For example, Sputnik news agency & radio reported a few weeks ago that BP delivered crude oil to the delivery warehouse of Shanghai International Energy Exchange after completing the first RMB futures trading of crude oil in August 2020. This is also the first time that major oil companies in developed countries have participated in the physical delivery of RMB crude oil futures.
The data shows that RMB crude oil futures have attracted market participants from 23 countries including Britain, Switzerland, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Australia, Japan and Thailand. 68 international brokerage companies have launched RMB crude oil trading services. Crude oil RMB futures have become one of the three largest crude oil futures in the world. In addition, a few weeks ago, an oil buyer in China signed the first RMB-settled crude oil futures Middle East crude oil import agreement. According to Reuters's analysis, China will use RMB to settle imported oil on a larger scale.
In this regard, Aditi Kumar, a professor at Harvard University, believes that under the background that RMB crude oil futures have more market share and pricing power in Asia, digital RMB may eventually make it easier for Iran and other countries to bypass the previous monetary system. More and more oil transactions around the world anchor the east wind of crude oil RMB, which may become a new trend.
In fact, trading oil in non-dollar currencies is something that many oil countries in the world, including the United Arab Emirates and Russia, have long hoped to accomplish. However, Reuters said that all their challenges to Petrodollar failed, and PetroRMB did what others failed to do.
This is also one of the signals that the status of petrodollars is declining, and its status has also been impacted at the level of dollar debt. Since 20 18, US debt has fallen into an unprecedented wave of selling, and major central banks around the world have sold US Treasury bonds, with a cumulative scale of 2 trillion US dollars.
Not only did the central banks of Russia, Turkey and other economies restricted by the US dollar almost reduce their holdings of US debt, but many traditional economic allies of the United States, such as Britain, Germany, France and Canada, also sold US Treasury bonds in different months to varying degrees.
It is worth mentioning that another new change is that, according to the latest report released by the US Treasury Department on August 16 (the practice of delaying US debt data by two months), as of June this year, China reduced its holdings of US debt for four consecutive months, the largest reduction in that month. At present, its holdings have dropped to 1061900 million dollars, the lowest since last year10. Since 20 18, the selling of U.S. treasury bonds has reached as high as $2 18 1 billion, which is much higher than that held by developed countries such as France and Germany.
Gross, who is known as the old American debt king, believes that the global wave of selling American debt will continue, because the inflation in the US market is too high to be effectively contained in a short time. It is almost inevitable that the dollar reserve status will decline. According to the data of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the share of US dollar reserves has unexpectedly dropped from 73% in 2000 to 59% in the past 25 years. Earlier, the US financial website Zerohedge quoted experts as saying that with the increase of risks, some major US debt holders may have liquidated or will liquidate US debt.