Fidelity Digital Assets has identified what it calls “growing evidence” that countries are actively testing payment and settlement systems outside U.S. control, pointing to sustained central bank gold demand and disputed reports of Bitcoin-linked toll activity near the Strait of Hormuz as indicators of a broader shift away from dollar-based financial infrastructure. The assessment appeared in the firm’s “Six Key Trends Shaping Digital Assets in 2026” report, one of the more closely watched institutional analyses of the crypto and macro landscape this year.
The report stops well short of declaring the end of dollar dominance. But it frames Bitcoin and gold as assets gaining strategic relevance precisely because of their distance from U.S.-controlled financial rails — and it suggests that the conditions driving that relevance are becoming harder to ignore.
What Fidelity’s 2026 Report Actually Says
Fidelity’s core argument is about alternative settlement mechanisms. The report describes a world in which some countries are no longer content to rely exclusively on dollar-denominated systems for international trade and financial activity. Instead, they are exploring or quietly building parallel infrastructure — payment routes, reserve assets, and settlement layers — that reduce their exposure to U.S. policy decisions.
Gold is the cleaner part of that story. Central bank demand for gold has remained strong through 2026, even after the metal pulled back from its January high. Fidelity cited data showing gold had overtaken U.S. dollars and Treasuries as a leading component of global reserves. The firm said gold’s performance and continued central bank accumulation were “broadly aligned” with its earlier thesis that reserve diversification away from dollar assets was underway.
Bitcoin is the more complicated and contested part of the narrative. Fidelity referenced reports that Iran had accepted Bitcoin for tolls and payments tied to activity in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical oil shipping routes. The firm presented this as evidence of state-level interest in Bitcoin as an alternative settlement layer. However, Fidelity also acknowledged that Bitcoin’s price performance has not yet followed through on the geopolitical narrative, noting that BTC outperformance has lagged relative to gold’s moves.
The Strait of Hormuz Bitcoin Claims Are Disputed
It is important to separate what Fidelity cited from what has actually been confirmed. The claim that Iran is actively accepting Bitcoin for Strait of Hormuz tolls remains contested. Iranian state-linked media have publicly denied that Tehran is already collecting tolls in Bitcoin or stablecoins. That denial does not definitively resolve the question, but it does mean the story is far from settled.
What is better documented is a separate proposal from Iran’s Economy Ministry, reported by Fars News in May 2026. The ministry outlined an insurance-based model for ships using the Strait of Hormuz, centered on marine insurance policies and financial responsibility certificates. The same report suggested the model could generate more than $10 billion for Iran. Crucially, it did not confirm that Bitcoin payments were already active under the proposed system.
The distinction matters. There is a meaningful difference between a country actively settling international trade in Bitcoin and a country proposing a financial model that might eventually incorporate crypto assets. Fidelity’s report draws on the reported activity as supporting evidence for a broader trend, but the underlying data point remains disputed rather than verified.
Why USDT Freezes Strengthen the Bitcoin Case
One part of Fidelity’s analysis that rests on firmer ground involves the limits of stablecoins as alternative settlement tools. U.S. authorities recently froze $344 million in USDT connected to Iran, targeting flows linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The freeze was a sharp demonstration of a structural vulnerability that dollar-backed stablecoins carry: issuers can comply with U.S. sanctions enforcement by freezing or blacklisting specific wallets, making stablecoins subject to the same political and legal constraints as traditional dollar-based systems.
This is precisely the contrast Fidelity’s report highlights. Stablecoins offer speed and programmability, but they inherit the enforcement reach of the dollar system. Bitcoin, by contrast, has no central issuer to pressure and no blacklist mechanism at the protocol level. For any country or actor seeking a settlement layer genuinely outside U.S. control, that architectural difference is significant.
The practical challenge is that Bitcoin’s volatility makes it difficult to use for large-scale trade settlement in the way that stablecoins or gold can be. But the USDT freeze episode illustrates why the search for genuinely censorship-resistant settlement tools is not purely theoretical. For sanctioned states or countries seeking to reduce financial exposure to Washington, the limitations of stablecoins are not abstract risks but demonstrated vulnerabilities.
Gold Overtakes Dollars in Global Reserves
The gold section of Fidelity’s report sits on more solid empirical ground. Central bank gold buying has been one of the defining trends in global finance over the past several years, and 2026 data suggests it has continued. The milestone Fidelity cited — gold overtaking U.S. dollars and Treasuries as a leading reserve asset globally — reflects a shift that has been building gradually since the 2022 freeze of Russian central bank assets held in Western financial institutions.
That episode was widely interpreted as a signal to other large economies that dollar-denominated reserves held in Western institutions carried geopolitical risk. The response, visible in central bank reserve data since then, has been a steady reallocation toward gold, which cannot be frozen by a foreign government and does not depend on any issuer or clearinghouse.
Fidelity’s framing connects this gold demand directly to the same dynamic driving interest in Bitcoin. Both assets are, in different ways, outside the dollar system. Gold has thousands of years of precedent as a reserve asset and near-universal recognition. Bitcoin has a shorter track record but a more portable, digitally native architecture. For Fidelity, the relevant point is that demand for both is rising simultaneously, and for reasons that are fundamentally about reducing dependence on U.S.-controlled financial infrastructure.
What This Means for Bitcoin’s Role in Global Finance
Fidelity is careful not to overstate its case. The report does not argue that the dollar has lost its reserve currency status or that Bitcoin is on the verge of replacing it. The dollar remains dominant in global trade invoicing, cross-border lending, and foreign exchange reserves. That position does not disappear quickly or easily.
What the report does argue is that the architecture of global finance is under more pressure than it has been in decades, and that Bitcoin and gold are benefiting from that pressure in ways that are becoming structurally significant rather than episodic. Countries are not abandoning the dollar, but a growing number are building optionality — alternative routes, reserve assets, and settlement mechanisms — that reduce the cost of doing so if circumstances require it.
For Bitcoin specifically, the gap Fidelity identifies between the geopolitical narrative and actual price performance is worth watching. Gold has already reflected the reserve diversification trend in its price. Bitcoin, if its role in alternative settlement systems becomes more clearly documented and more widely adopted, would represent a significantly earlier stage of a similar repricing. Fidelity does not predict when or whether that repricing happens. But the report makes clear the firm believes the conditions for it are developing.
