In certain macro circles, so many people (especially >50 y/o) are big into the idea of a gold-backed BRICS currency and how it'll subvert the dollar and moon the price of gold.

And while there's some truth to it directionally over a certain time frame (e.g. Zoltan Pozsar's "Bretton Woods 3.0" theme, and BRICS nations really are trying to de-dollarize or at least diversify their payments and savings exposure to varying degrees), it's clearly a weak solution in the long run.

Bretton Woods failed within like 12 years of being fully implemented. Why? Because the proliferation of IOUs was not constrained, but the underlying metal was.

And that was with America being a hyperpower. A bunch of separate BRICS nations, some of which don't even like each other much (e.g. China and India), putting together some coalition is shaky form the start. Who will trust the audits of how much gold or commodities they have in their reserves?

In the intermediate term, it does make sense for BRICS countries to route payments through other systems, such as the New Development Bank (formerly known as the BRICS Development Bank) or through various bilateral swaps. But the longevity of such a model is dubious.

Bitcoin is too small at the present time to serve as solution for this scale of global trade, but in the long arc of time it seems a far more obvious solution for global payments and reserves.