The institutions that hold the world's financial reserves are getting nervous about the dollar, and they're doing something about it.

A new survey by investment firm Invesco, covering 90 sovereign wealth funds and 54 central banks managing a combined $29 trillion in assets, found these institutions are quietly redesigning their portfolios around one idea: resilience. More energy infrastructure, more gold, and less unquestioned faith in U.S. assets.

What's actually changing

The immediate pivot is toward energy. Some 80% of those surveyed said energy security and energy transition infrastructure were the most credible investments for making portfolios hold up under stress. Infrastructure now makes up 9% of sovereign wealth fund assets in 2026, up from lower levels in prior years. Part of the appeal is straightforward: power grids, pipelines, and the data centers fueling the AI buildout all need long-term capital, and they tend to keep generating returns regardless of which way markets swing.

But the dollar concerns are the more striking finding. Sixty-one percent of central banks polled said U.S. debt levels are already hurting the dollar's long-term standing as the world's reserve currency. That's up from just 20% who said the same thing in 2024. A reserve currency is, in plain terms, the money the world uses when countries trade with each other, hold savings, or price commodities like oil. The dollar has been that currency for decades. Losing that status, even gradually, would reshape global finance in ways that eventually reach American households through higher borrowing costs and weaker purchasing power abroad.

Twenty-nine percent of those surveyed expect the dollar's reserve-currency standing to be weaker in five years, up from 12% in 2022. The trajectory is steady and consistent.

One-third of those polled said they plan to increase gold holdings as part of this shift.

Why now

The survey points to a cluster of overlapping pressures: trade tariffs disrupting supply chains, closed shipping channels, the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and what Invesco's head of research Benjamin Jones described as "geopolitical fragmentation and more concentrated markets." The traditional playbook, where bonds cushion the fall when stocks drop, has been breaking down. In recent years, bonds and stocks have often moved in the same direction, which means holding both no longer provides the protection it once did. Investors are looking elsewhere.

Several institutions reported reviewing their reliance on U.S.-based financial infrastructure, including the custodians and clearing systems that handle how assets are stored and transferred. One European central bank told Invesco it had already replaced its U.S. custodian. A Latin American central bank said it was building new non-U.S. custodial relationships in preparation for a "worst-case scenario."

The geopolitical sensitivity around these moves is real. One central bank respondent put it plainly: "This act in and of itself could be interpreted as hostile by the U.S."

What this means in practice

The dollar isn't about to be dethroned. Invesco's own survey acknowledges that the lack of a credible alternative means any shift will be slow and incremental. No single currency is positioned to replace it. But the direction matters even when the pace is gradual.

When large sovereign funds and central banks move even a few percentage points of $29 trillion away from U.S. assets and into energy infrastructure, gold, and non-U.S. financial systems, that's real capital with real consequences. It can push up U.S. borrowing costs over time, put pressure on the dollar, and, over years, chip away at the structural advantage that cheap global borrowing has given American consumers and businesses.

The survey captures something that rarely makes headlines: the world's most cautious, long-horizon investors are quietly updating their assumptions about America's financial centrality. They're not panicking. They're hedging. That's usually how structural shifts begin.