Many years ago, the US dollar became the world's primary reserve currency

The US dollar has served as the world's reserve currency for 80 years—but is its dominance coming to an end?

Since the establishment of the Bretton Woods economic system, about 90% of global foreign exchange transactions have involved USD. Although no viable alternative exists yet, the dollar's share of central bank reserves has decreased from 73% to 58% from 2001 to 2024, and President Trump's 2025 tariffs have sped up this trend.

The global economy runs on US dollars

Nearly 90% of international trade in 2019 was processed in US dollars. It's not only the most circulated currency in the world but also considered one of the most stable.

The Bretton Woods conference in 1944 created the foundations of the modern global economy

In July 1944, 44 nations gathered in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to create a new postwar economic order. The conference led to the creation of the IMF and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development—now known as the World Bank.

The US dollar is the most widely circulated currency in the world, and is involved in nearly 90% of global transactions

The US dollar is the official currency of the United States and is the most circulated currency around the world

The US dollar was established in 1792 and comes in the form of coins or paper money. It's considered one of (if not the most) stable currencies in the world due to America’s strong and robust economy, as well as its relatively stable government.

Nixon's 1971 decision to untether the dollar from gold ended the Bretton Woods exchange rate system

The Bretton Woods system initially pegged all major currencies to the US dollar, which could be exchanged for gold at a fixed rate of $35 per ounce. Growing deficits and decreasing gold reserves prompted Nixon to end that guarantee in 1971, marking the end of the fixed exchange rate era.

Harry Dexter White outmaneuvered Keynes to make the dollar the center of the new global monetary system

The chief US Treasury economist at the conference, White, advocated for a dollar-centered exchange rate system over Keynes' competing idea of a new global currency, shaping the postwar economic order for decades.

Some scholars consider the Bretton Woods system one of the best foreign policy decisions in US history

A survey of historians by the Council on Foreign Relations ranked the creation of the Bretton Woods system among the top 10 foreign policy decisions in US history, highlighting its role in establishing postwar stability, prosperity, and decades of economic growth.

Throughout most of the 1800s, US currency was backed by silver and gold

In post-Civil War America, the government moved to use only the gold standard. This was how US currency was backed for decades in the US. You can read a comprehensive explainer on the gold standard and its history in the US to learn more.

British economist John Maynard Keynes originally proposed a global currency called the bancor

Keynes—one of the chief architects of the Bretton Woods system—proposed establishing a global central bank that would issue a new international currency, the bancor, to settle trade imbalances. The idea was rejected in favor of the US dollar serving as the main currency of the international system.

Fort Knox was built to be a secure facility for the US Treasury's gold reserves

The gold reserves were previously used to back the US dollar under the gold standard. Although the US went off the gold standard in 1971, Fort Knox continues to store a large portion of the nation's gold reserves.

Visual Capitalist shows the top 50 countries by central bank reserves

As of 2024, China, Japan, and the United States held the top three spots in terms of the value of their respective central bank reserves.

In 1792, Congress established the first national mint to produce all the coins in the US

At the same time, the US also started producing the dollar, its first official currency. The US Mint has since issued coins throughout the country.

USDC's reserves were held at Silicon Valley Bank when the bank collapsed

One of the world's largest stablecoin's reserves were held at Silicon Valley Bank, which famously failed in March 2023. USDC briefly lost its peg to the US dollar for a time as a result, within investors pulling out billions of dollars.

US inflation can generally be split into to two periods—before and after the Federal Reserve

A central bank itself does not mean significant inflation will occur, but economists generally point to factors like two world wars and the printing of money to finance the US federal deficit as primary drivers of price increases.

Early Americans hated the idea of a central bank

After a series of economic panics induced by a lack of reserve cash at regional banks, the architects of today’s Federal Reserve opted to emphasize the goal of the bank as a reserve at the federal level—thus creating the lasting name.

The formation of the UN elevated the US on the world stage

This podcast episode of "To the Best of My Ability" from the National WWII Museum goes behind the scenes of the United Nations' founding from the American perspective. It explores how FDR's vision for global peace took shape, how Truman carried it forward, and how Eleanor Roosevelt helped define human rights—set against the backdrop of wartime diplomacy, Cold War tensions, and the San Francisco Conference, where the UN Charter was signed.

The US has carried debt since 1791

After the Revolutionary War, the US owed $75M to nations like France. Debt builds when spending exceeds revenue, funding programs, wars, and economic recovery efforts. Most debt is domestic, like Social Security bonds, with foreign nations also holding a share.

Arguments for returning to a gold standard reappear from time to time

However, critics argue that globalization has made the gold standard impractical for modern economies, as it limits a nation’s ability to have a flexible monetary policy—hence, none of today's governments have a gold standard.

The British pound is the oldest currency still in use

Also known as the “pound sterling,” the British pound is more than 1,200 years old. It dates back to around 775 CE, but it didn’t become the official currency of England until the 12th century. One pound originally represented a pound of silver. The below graphic shows some of the other oldest currencies still in use today.

The idea for the Federal Reserve was conceived in secret in 1910—with bankers donning duck hunt gear for disguise while traveling to a remote country club on Georgia's Jekyll Island

Governments have historically used counterfeiting for economic warfare

Inserting fake currency into an economy can help destabilize it. During the American Revolution, for instance, the British distributed counterfeit “Continental Dollars” in an effort to devalue the currency being used in the US at the time with the goal of undermining America’s growing financial credibility. The Nazis also ran an extensive counterfeiting scheme during WWII.

The world is shifting from unipolarity toward a multipolar order

The post-Cold War world was briefly unipolar after 1991, with the US standing alone as a global superpower following decades of US-Soviet bipolarity. Analysts increasingly describe today's order as multipolar, with China, Russia, the US, and regional powers all competing for influence.

The Panama Canal boosted the US as a world power in trade, engineering, and finance

The effort proved the US could achieve grand engineering projects while granting it influence over (and benefitting economically from) a major interoceanic channel and its host country, Panama.

Before Pearl Harbor, the US was a nonbelligerent ally to the Allied powers

Between September 1940 and December 7, 1941, the United States remained officially neutral—yet President Roosevelt incrementally shifted policy from “cash‑and‑carry” to Lend‑Lease, funneling critical military aid to Britain and other allies without entering the war.

How much did WWII cost?

Though it lasted fewer than four years, World War II was the most expensive war in United States history, according to this infographic. Read through it to see how much WWII cost and learn about the consequences of financing such an expensive conflict.

The UK was already in a depression before the US Great Depression took hold

The US Great Depression was felt globally, but the severity and length of different countries’ economic downturns varied. For instance, Japan was the first country to exit its depression.

The US Constitution is widely regarded as the longest-standing written national constitution still in force—see how it has influenced rights worldwide.

Roughly 43 million US borrowers owe roughly $1.7T in student debt, the second-largest source of consumer debt behind mortgages.

While the first exchange-traded fund (a 'basket' of different assets that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange) in the US only launched in 1993, the global ETF market has grown to more than $10T in the short time since.

The US first hosted the World Cup in 1994, a tournament that lives in soccer infamy for its poor planning and the murder of Colombian player Andres Escobar, who'd accidentally scored on his own net.

The power and influence of the American presidency have expanded significantly over time—far beyond what the founders envisioned.

Some coin denominations have ridges etched on their sides, partly to prevent counterfeiting, in a practice called 'reeding.'

The United States has had a tumultuous relationship with Cuba since its 1959 revolution, highlighted by a nuclear crisis and a decades-long trade embargo.

The USPS spent $3.97B in 2024, accounting for .058% of the federal budget.

Before the current East Wing ballroom project, only two White House renovations in the past 100 years cost more than $10M.

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.

See the most iconic photos from four decades of LIFE magazine

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

Discover the catastrophic consequences of a failure of the US electrical grid—something that is more likely than many Americans think.

The most expensive ad of all time was for Chanel No. 5 perfume and cost roughly $33M to produce in 2004—about $57M in today's dollars.

Before humans, the Soviet Union and the United States sent animals—including apes, dogs, and cats—to space during the Space Race.

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation.

In 1945, Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and legendary animator Walt Disney began collaborating on a short film that was not completed until 2003, years after both men had died.

According to the physics of black holes, our 4D reality may be a hologram—a projection of information coded on a 2D surface on the edge of the universe.

See the evolution of Ebola vaccine and treatment development.

A small portion of The Winstons' 'Amen, Brother,' an obscure '60s gospel record, is the basis for thousands of hip-hop tracks, making it one of the most sampled records ever that's informally known as 'the Amen break.'

See how fireworks are made and learn how metals like magnesium and copper are responsible for different colors.