Lyn Alden says a weaker dollar is necessary for the US to stabilize its financial system.

The U.S. dollar (DXY) has been steadily weakening, a fact that is no longer making major headlines. With several disruptions unfolding in the American economy, the greenback’s decline has become part of the backdrop. Since the beginning of 2025, the U.S. Dollar Index has lost 11%, now trading at levels last seen in April 2022.

Markets have largely responded with a shrug. After all, in times of deep restructuring, isn’t some dollar weakness to be expected?

But the fact that the dollar is sliding at all is noteworthy. And in a May 4 newsletter, independent market analyst Lyn Alden has argued that this weakness may be necessary for the U.S. to stabilize its financial system. According to Alden, a controlled retreat from dollar hegemony could be one of the few paths left to keep the fragile system afloat. And if the U.S. steps back from its role at the center of the monetary universe, the world will need alternatives. Neutral assets like gold and Bitcoin could be well-positioned to take on a more central role.

The U.S. and the dollar are in a ‘long-term transition’

Fractional reserve banking, the system that fiat money relies on, creates money through lending. Each time a bank issues a loan, it expands the supply of broad money, without necessarily creating enough base money to cover the loan principal and its interest. This means that the current financial system relies on continual credit expansion and refinancing to remain solvent.

Today, the U.S. has around $102 trillion in public and private dollar-denominated debt, with another $18 trillion owed by borrowers outside the U.S. And that’s not even counting derivatives, which would push the total much higher. Yet only $5.8 trillion in base money actually exists.

The U.S. plays a special role in this system. It imports more than it exports, while surplus countries funnel their dollar earnings back into American stocks, bonds, real estate, and private equity. For the $18 trillion in dollar liabilities held abroad, non-U.S. entities hold roughly $61 trillion in U.S. dollar assets. But when dollar liquidity tightens — when the music stops — foreign holders often have to sell those assets to service their debts, which, in turn, threatens U.S. financial stability.

This happened in March 2020, when parts of the Treasury market froze during the peak panic stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Fed stepped in, quickly opening emergency swap lines with foreign central banks and printing trillions in base money to re-float the system. That solved the liquidity issue but unleashed inflation, hitting lower-income Americans the hardest.

Combined with decades of industrial decline and widening social gaps, this situation eventually created the political mandate for Donald Trump and his protectionist agenda. However, the tariff shock is unlikely to be successful. The current system implies that the U.S. must run structural trade deficits to provide the global economy with enough dollars to keep the greenback’s dominance. The only way of rebalancing trade flows is through a weak dollar and a step back from monetary hegemony.

As Alden puts it,

If the U.S. tries to maintain a strong dollar while also reducing its trade deficit, it will encounter significant difficulties. If the U.S. attempts to maintain its trade deficit while strengthening the dollar, it may face issues with inflation and liquidity in the global financial system. Finally, if the U.S. tries to reduce both its trade deficit and strengthen the dollar, it will likely encounter difficulties on multiple fronts, leading to a broader economic downturn.

The Bitcoin to DXY relationship

Bitcoin (BTC) and DXY are inversely correlated. When the dollar strengthens, risk-on assets like BTC lose some of their appeal to investors. When the dollar weakens, BTC becomes more attractive not just as a speculative play, but as an alternative currency. In a system where fiat must effectively lose value over time to function, Bitcoin’s fixed supply and monetary neutrality offer a compelling hedge.

Overlaying BTC and DXY charts reveals that major divergences between the two often align with Bitcoin trend reversals. In April 2018 and March 2022, such divergences signaled bear markets, while November 2020 marked the start of a bullish rally.

In the 2023-2026 cycle, BTC caught up with the DXY in early 2024, and the two moved largely in sync until recently. A clear divergence began at the beginning of April 2025, with the DXY dropping below 100 for the first time in two years.

If past patterns are any guide, this could signal the start of a new BTC rally. And if the U.S. moves to strategically weaken the dollar in the long term