Dollar-denominated reserves - ie central bank holdings - adjusted for valuation effects are now lower than gold reserves for the first time since the International Monetary Fund started publishing the data in the late 1990s.
Unadjusted dollar reserves then come to about $4 trillion, barely half the $7.5 trillion for the unadjusted measure reported by the IMF, which includes the interest earned on them (I use the Bloomberg US Treasury Index and take its return out of the unadjusted number). The IMF-reported amount is real, but it doesn’t capture active demand.
The same argument can be leveled at gold. Holdings of central banks could simply be passively benefiting from the metal’s historic rise in recent years. But if we consider the adjusted value of dollar reserves as the currency’s “weight,” then it has fallen 15% since official holdings of the US currency peaked around 2014. Whereas (almost exclusively emerging markets) central banks have increased their physical holdings of bullion, in tons, by 15%. It’s thus hard to refute that actual demand for dollars has been materially softening.
I’ll start by saying that I don’t disagree with you. Human lives are significantly more important than the dollar. I would also like more people to do things because it is the right thing rather than doing things for money. However, news stories will always be told from multiple angles, and there will be more angles with bigger events like these wars. It is unrealistic to expect people to only ever talk about the worst outcome of an event and turn a blind eye to relatively smaller bad outcomes.
This is also news that some people will want to know. You seem to be asking that this story not get written or discussed because there is human suffering involved, but is it not still newsworthy? If this same thing was happening during a time of world peace, do you think it should be written about? If you think it is something that could be reported on in a time of peace, why should it be ignored in a time of war?
You said in your comment, “But let’s talk about how this affects the power of the dollar instead because that’s SO MUCH more important.” Articles like these are not saying we should talk about the power of the dollar instead of human suffering; they are providing another angle to the conflicts. This article exists, but so do countless others that talk about the death and destruction of wars. It is not like this article somehow stops others that you care more about from existing. Also, while I can’t read the article due to the paywall, I have my doubts that they wrote about how devaluing the dollar is more important than the deaths.
You also ask who cares about the dollar, and the answer is a lot of people. Humans can have compassion for people that they have never met, but they also care about the people they personally know. Changes in the dollar affect people’s lives on a personal level. It’s a hard ask for people to ignore their own well-being or the well-being of their families for people they haven’t met.
Lastly, I think you yourself are making an argument for this article existing. You say that governments and other powerful people view things through the lens of their own wealth. Wouldn’t articles like this one push those people into action to stop conflicts? If they read about how their own money will be affected by war, they are more likely to push for an early end to wars. If they never know something is hurting their wallet, they are fine with it continuing. It is a nice idea that these people would just care about humanity over money, but it seems unlikely that change is coming any time soon. We might as well speak their language to try to stop the suffering.