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The 10 Most Traded Currencies in the World |
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The BIS counts the currency market once every three years. Its latest snapshot is April 2025, the month the dollar was being written off. Turnover hit $9.6 trillion a day, and the dollar's share went up. Nine of every ten trades on Earth had a dollar on one side. |
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Source: BIS Triennial Central Bank Survey, turnover in April 2025, published 30 September 2025. Shares sum to 200% — every trade has two currencies. |
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$1.95 billion changed hands Monday
On Monday, Newmont wrote its biggest rival a check for $1.95 billion.
They'd fought over the same Nevada ground for years.
It ended in one morning.
Newmont bought permission. Barrick can now split its North American mines into a company worth north of $60 billion.
The two largest gold miners on earth just cleared their decks.
They didn't do it to sit still.
The window shuts September 30th.
| What's Surprising |
April 2025 sat in the middle of the dollar's worst run in half a century. The dollar index fell 10.8% over the first six months of the year, its steepest first half since 1973. That is the month the BIS counted. The dollar's share of trading rose, to 89.2% from 88.4% in 2022.
The dollar's biggest marketplace is not in America. The United Kingdom handles 37.8% of the world's currency trading, twice the United States' 18.6%. Singapore is third at 11.8%, Hong Kong fourth at 7.0%. Four centres do three-quarters of the business, and only one of them prints the currency.
Switzerland has nine million people. Its franc is now the sixth most traded currency on Earth, ahead of the Australian and Canadian dollars. Hong Kong's dollar climbed from 2.6% to 3.8% in three years. It is pegged to the greenback, and that is the point. Most of that trading is dollar plumbing.
| What's Not Surprising |
China is 16.5% of the world economy and ships 14.7% of its goods. The renminbi is on one side of 8.5% of trades and sits in 2.0% of central-bank reserves. The further you get from Chinese factories, the less the currency is used. And 96% of renminbi trades are against dollars.
Reserve managers have diversified. Traders have not. Central banks held 71% of their reserves in dollars in 2000 and 57.1% in the first quarter of this year, about fourteen points lower in a generation. Over those same years the dollar's share of trading has not fallen at all.
Europe's currencies are being traded less. The euro slipped from 30.6% to 28.9%. Sterling fell from 12.9% to 10.2%, the biggest drop of any top-ten currency. The euro was built to rival the dollar. Twenty-six years on, it is in fewer than three trades in ten.
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$9.6 trillion Traded every day, up 28% in three years. The market turns over a year of world output in about thirteen days. |
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10.8% The dollar's fall in the first half of 2025, its worst since 1973. The same months the world traded it more heavily than ever. |
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37.8% London's share of global currency trading. The dollar's largest market is in another country, and it is twice the size of America's. |
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8.5% The renminbi's share of trading, up from 7.0% in 2022. China is 16.5% of the world economy. |
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57.1% The dollar's share of central-bank reserves, down from 71% in 2000. Its share of trading is 89.2%, and rising. |
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The next Triennial survey counts April 2028, so this is the picture for three years. Two shorter series move before then. The IMF refreshes reserve shares quarterly, and second-quarter data is due at the end of this month. The London and New York committees run their semi-annual turnover counts this October. Watch the renminbi: 8.5% of the trading, 2.0% of the reserves. Currencies are usually held before they are traded. This one is the other way round. We'll be watching. |
