A dollar reset could slash purchasing power overnight. Learn why physical gold and silver may help protect wealth before the rules change.<\/p>\n
He lived through Mexico’s currency reset. Here’s what he saw, and why he believes the U.S. may be heading toward a similar turning point.
\nITM Trading Senior Analyst Fernando Grijalva had a front-row seat to the Mexican peso devaluation and has spent nearly two decades studying monetary resets and currency collapses. In this conversation with Taylor Kenney, he breaks down what a dollar reset could actually look like the morning it happens, why central banks are buying gold at record levels, and the difference between simply protecting wealth and being properly positioned on the other side.<\/p>\n
That is the question behind the growing fear of a currency reset<\/strong>\u2014not as some fringe theory, but as a mathematical consequence of debt, inflation, monetary debasement, and a weakening dollar-based global system.<\/p>\n For decades, Americans were told the dollar was untouchable.<\/p>\n The reserve currency.<\/p>\n The cleanest shirt in the dirty laundry basket.<\/p>\n The financial anchor of the world.<\/p>\n But history has a brutal habit of embarrassing empires that believe they are exempt from math. The Roman denarius was debased. Britain lost reserve currency dominance. Mexico, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Russia, and others have lived through currency restructurings that many Americans still believe \u201ccould never happen here.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet the symptoms are now visible in plain sight:<\/p>\n The U.S. national debt is tracked daily by the Treasury, and the \u201cDebt to the Penny\u201d dataset now reflects the scale of the federal obligation facing the country. Meanwhile, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that CPI inflation rose 3.8% over the 12 months ending April 2026, with energy up 17.9% and food up 3.2%.<\/p>\n This is not about fear for fear\u2019s sake.<\/p>\n It is about positioning before the rules change.<\/p>\n A currency reset<\/strong> is what happens when a government or central bank restructures the monetary system because the old one no longer works.<\/p>\n Officials may not call it a \u201creset.\u201d They may call it:<\/p>\n But the result is the same: the value, structure, or unit of the currency changes.<\/p>\n In many historical cases, governments have \u201clopped off zeros\u201d after years of inflation. A 1,000-to-1 redenomination means 1,000 old units become 1 new unit. On paper, it looks clean. In real life, it is a psychological trick.<\/p>\n Your money may look simpler.<\/p>\n But your purchasing power may not be restored.<\/p>\n That is the trap.<\/p>\n If a cup of coffee costs 1,000 pesos before a reset and 1 peso after, officials can claim nothing changed. But if that same coffee quickly rises to 2, 3, or 4 new pesos, the public experiences another wave of inflation\u2014only now the numbers look smaller.<\/p>\n The reset does not solve the debt problem.<\/strong><\/p>\n It masks it.<\/p>\n A reset does not arrive out of nowhere.<\/p>\n It is usually preceded by symptoms.<\/p>\n Fernando Grijalva, senior analyst at ITM Trading, described the same warning signs he saw before Mexico\u2019s currency reset:<\/p>\n Sound familiar?<\/p>\n The U.S. dollar\u2019s purchasing power has been steadily eroded for more than a century. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis tracks the purchasing power of the consumer dollar using BLS CPI data, showing the long-term decline in what a dollar can buy.<\/p>\n That decline is not an accident.<\/p>\n It is the built-in consequence of a debt-based fiat currency system.<\/p>\n And once purchasing power is inflated away, governments face two broad options:<\/p>\n The second option is politically easier.<\/p>\n It lets officials claim debts are being paid back in nominal terms while the real value of that repayment collapses.<\/p>\n That is the stealth default.<\/p>\n Nominal Wealth vs. Real Wealth: The Illusion Most Americans Miss<\/strong><\/p>\n This is where millions of retirement savers get trapped.<\/p>\n A bank statement may say $100,000.<\/p>\n A brokerage account may say $500,000.<\/p>\n A retirement account may say $1 million.<\/p>\n But those are nominal numbers.<\/p>\n The real question is: What will that money buy?<\/strong><\/p>\n If your account balance stays the same while food, insurance, medical care, energy, and housing rise, your nominal wealth may be intact while your real wealth is being gutted.<\/p>\n That is exactly why inflation is so destructive for retirees.<\/p>\n You do not need your dollars to vanish.<\/p>\n You only need them to buy less every year.<\/p>\n And that is already happening. The BLS reported April 2026 CPI at 3.8% year-over-year, with energy costs rising sharply and food costs still moving higher.<\/p>\n For retirees and conservative savers, this is the nightmare scenario:<\/p>\n This is why gold and silver matter.<\/p>\n They are not promises.<\/p>\n They are tangible assets.<\/p>\n The average American is told gold is outdated.<\/p>\n Central banks apparently did not get the memo.<\/p>\n The World Gold Council reported that central banks bought 244 tonnes of gold on a net basis in Q1 2026, up 3% year-over-year, even as gold prices remained elevated.<\/p>\n That is not random.<\/p>\n Central banks understand what most savers are never taught:<\/p>\n Gold is not someone else\u2019s liability.<\/strong><\/p>\n A dollar is a liability of the monetary system.<\/p>\n A Treasury bond is a promise.<\/p>\n A bank deposit is a claim.<\/p>\n An ETF is a paper structure.<\/p>\n But physical gold held directly has no counterparty risk.<\/p>\n That is why central banks keep accumulating it.<\/p>\n Not because they expect calm.<\/p>\n Because they are preparing for instability.<\/p>\n The World Gold Council has also noted that allocated gold has long received favorable regulatory treatment under the Basel framework, including zero risk weighting in certain contexts.<\/p>\n In plain English: the financial system understands gold\u2019s role, even while the public is often encouraged to ignore it.<\/p>\n The dollar remains the world\u2019s dominant reserve currency.<\/p>\n But dominance is not permanence.<\/p>\n The St. Louis Fed reported that dollar-denominated securities made up about 57% of global foreign exchange reserves as of Q3 2025, using IMF COFER data.<\/p>\n That is still powerful.<\/p>\n But it is not the same as invincible.<\/p>\n BRICS nations and other countries have increasingly explored local-currency trade, alternative settlement systems, and ways to reduce dependence on the dollar. The BRICS Council described de-dollarization as one of the most prominent themes in current BRICS economic cooperation discussions.<\/p>\n The point is not that the dollar disappears tomorrow.<\/p>\n The point is that the world is preparing for a system where the dollar is no longer the only game in town.<\/p>\n And once foreign demand for dollars weakens, the U.S. loses one of its greatest privileges: the ability to export inflation and debt to the rest of the world.<\/p>\n That is when the pressure comes home.<\/p>\n What a Dollar Reset Could Look Like<\/strong><\/p>\n Imagine a simple 10-to-1 currency reset.<\/p>\n You wake up and officials announce that the old dollar has been restructured into a new dollar.<\/p>\n Your $100,000 becomes $10,000.<\/p>\n Your $1 million becomes $100,000.<\/p>\n Officials insist the purchasing power is the same.<\/p>\n But history suggests that prices rarely stay frozen after a reset.<\/p>\n Within weeks or months, the cost of everyday goods may start rising again in the new currency.<\/p>\n That means the saver gets hit twice:<\/p>\n This is why being in dollar-denominated assets during a reset can be so dangerous.<\/p>\n Dollar-denominated assets may include:<\/p>\n The risk is not simply that dollars decline.<\/p>\n The risk is that the rules change before you can react.<\/p>\n One of the most disturbing symptoms before and during currency crises is the rise of capital controls.<\/p>\n Capital controls are restrictions on how money can move.<\/p>\n They can include:<\/p>\n Many Americans already feel the early version of this when they go to the bank and are asked why they want their own money.<\/p>\n Why do you need the cash?<\/p>\n What are you using it for?<\/p>\n Can you prove the purpose?<\/p>\n In a crisis, those questions can become restrictions.<\/p>\n That is why physical gold and silver are different.<\/p>\n They sit outside the banking system.<\/p>\n They do not depend on a bank\u2019s permission, a broker\u2019s liquidity window, or a government\u2019s digital payment rail.<\/p>\n Gold and Silver: Wealth Preservation When the Dollar Fails<\/strong><\/p>\n During currency resets, the goal is not merely survival.<\/p>\n It is positioning.<\/p>\n Fernando described how some business owners in Mexico lost everything because they stayed trapped in the old system. Others moved into tangible assets before the reset and emerged with generational wealth.<\/p>\n That is the key lesson.<\/p>\n Physical gold and silver have historically served as:<\/p>\n This is the core of the gold vs dollar<\/strong> argument.<\/p>\n The dollar is a policy instrument.<\/p>\n Gold is a monetary asset.<\/p>\n The dollar can be printed, restructured, frozen, inflated, or politically weaponized.<\/p>\n Gold cannot be printed by decree.<\/p>\n Silver adds another layer. It is both a monetary metal and an industrial metal, making it attractive during periods when investors seek tangible assets but gold becomes increasingly expensive for the average saver.<\/p>\n Together, gold and silver offer something fiat currency cannot:<\/p>\n They are not promises from a bankrupt system.<\/strong><\/p>\n Many investors believe they own gold because they own a gold ETF.<\/p>\n But an ETF is not the same as physical gold in your possession or directly allocated storage.<\/p>\n An ETF may provide price exposure.<\/p>\n It may be useful for trading.<\/p>\n But in a reset or crisis, the investor must still depend on:<\/p>\n That is counterparty risk.<\/p>\n Physical gold and silver reduce that risk because the asset itself is not dependent on someone else\u2019s promise to perform.<\/p>\n This distinction matters most when the system is under stress.<\/p>\n In normal times, paper claims can feel convenient.<\/p>\n In crisis times, convenience can become a trap.<\/p>\n The Opportunity Side of a Currency Reset<\/strong><\/p>\n The darkest part of a reset is obvious: savers trapped in fiat currency can lose purchasing power rapidly.<\/p>\n But there is another side.<\/p>\n Opportunity.<\/p>\n When currency systems reset, assets can reprice violently.<\/p>\n Some assets collapse.<\/p>\n Others surge.<\/p>\n Those holding liquid, trusted assets may be able to buy distressed assets at pennies on the dollar.<\/p>\n That could include:<\/p>\n But only those with liquidity can take advantage.<\/p>\n If your wealth is trapped in frozen accounts, devalued currency, or paper claims, the opportunity may pass you by.<\/p>\n Gold and silver are not just defensive assets.<\/p>\n They may become the bridge from the old system to the new one.<\/p>\n A currency reset<\/strong> is not the end of the world.<\/p>\n But it may be the end of the financial world many Americans thought was permanent.<\/p>\n The dollar\u2019s purchasing power has been eroding for generations. Debt continues rising. Inflation remains embedded. Central banks are buying gold. BRICS nations are openly discussing reduced dollar dependence. And ordinary Americans are being asked more questions just to access their own money.<\/p>\n The warning signs are no longer buried in obscure reports.<\/p>\n They are visible every day.<\/p>\n The real question is not whether the system is under pressure.<\/p>\n It is whether you are positioned before the announcement comes.<\/p>\n Because when the reset becomes official, the window to prepare may already be closed.<\/p>\n Gold and silver are not about panic.<\/p>\n They are about control.<\/p>\n They are about owning tangible assets in a world built on promises.<\/p>\n And when paper wealth is repriced, restructured, or restricted, those tangible assets may be the difference between watching the opportunity pass by\u2014and having the liquidity to act.<\/p>\n About ITM Trading<\/strong><\/p>\n ITM Trading has over 28 years of experience helping clients safeguard their wealth through personalized strategies built on physical gold and silver. Our team of experts delivers research-backed guidance tailored to today\u2019s economic threats.<\/p>\n\n
What Is a Currency Reset?<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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The Currency Reset Warning Signs Are Already Here<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Why Central Banks Are Buying Gold Before the Reset<\/strong><\/h3>\n
The Dollar Is Still Dominant\u2014But It Is No Longer Untouchable<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Capital Controls: When Your Money Stops Feeling Like Yours<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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The reset can destroy paper wealth\u2014but it can also transfer opportunity to those holding the right assets.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Paper Gold vs. Physical Gold: The Counterparty Risk Problem<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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