De-dollarization: Is the US dollar losing its dominance? (2025) • Hacker News Board

Re: De-dollarization: Is the US dollar losing its dominance? (2025)

#261

Post by usrbinenv » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 5:30 PM UTC

vablings wrote: post #238

usrbinenv wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's far from slim - it's very likely USD and EUR hegemony will be challenged. Western financial systems are ultimately and inherently discriminatory towards any non-western countries. Where for westerners using those systems enjoy reliability and predictability, the same systems implicitly (and recently, more explicitly) punish non-westerners with excessive compliance and scrutiny. So, basically, if you're from a no…

When you say non-western what do you mean in this context? From what you describe it just sounds like China, Russia and North Korea

I mean literally any country outside of Europe, North america, Australia, New Zealand and maybe some non-western exceptions like Singapore.

Re: De-dollarization: Is the US dollar losing its dominance? (2025)

#262

Post by linkregister » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 5:30 PM UTC

mothballed wrote: post #222

parsimo2010 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is part of the same reason many people don't use Bitcoin- you can't actually do much with it because retailers don't accept it. But China is definitely thinking about how to fix that problem, and soon they will make it possible to pay directly in CNY in other countries. Once you can buy things with it, the CNY is attractive from a practical perspective. A lot of your stuff is already manufactured in China, once/…

Retailers don't accept crypto not because of the technology so much as the fact it is a capital gains event every time you transfer crypto, which means both the buyer and seller are now forced to keep a log of their gains/losses against the dollar everytime they buy a pack of gum. Obviously that's extremely impractical and at best you're hiring a 3rd party to streamline that for you. It's a clusterfuck at tax time (e…

Reticence among retailers predates the capital gains policy of the IRS. The volatility of Bitcoin's value induces excessive exchange risk. However, we don't see capital gains nor exchange risk with stablecoins. I assume that network effects are insufficient to drive retail demand for stablecoin support.

Re: De-dollarization: Is the US dollar losing its dominance? (2025)

#263

Post by AnimalMuppet » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 5:30 PM UTC

WarmWash wrote: post #136

Trump is a populist president who sees the value of US exports (on the back of blue collar work) being more important than global dollar dominance. This plays hand in hand with his championing of tariffs (foreign goods become more expensive) and hostility towards immigrants (apply upwards pressure on domestic wages). If you cannot see this, or cannot believe it, you should probably check if you are in a ideological b…

The EU is not going to move into China's basket, not if you mean using the yuan as a reserve currency. There's too much political risk - the value is at the control of political decisions by the CCP.

Re: De-dollarization: Is the US dollar losing its dominance? (2025)

#264

Post by RealityVoid » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 5:31 PM UTC

usrusr wrote: post #255

notahacker wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flip side is if you weaken the dollar by appearing unstable and displaying hostility to your main trade partners, you get the drawbacks of the weaker currency (reduced purchasing power) without commensurate improvement in the attractiveness of goods to other countries. Some devaluations are more strategic than others.

But the broligarchs don't need purchasing power. All their wealth is in assets, leveraged many times over. Currency collapse is the best that can happen to them.

Don't worry, assets collapse as well when a lot of the market of the US becomes unavailable.

Re: De-dollarization: Is the US dollar losing its dominance? (2025)

#265

Post by krupan » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 5:31 PM UTC

StephenSmith wrote: post #9

If the goal is to make US goods attractive to other countries and to decrease our trade deficit (not saying I agree with this goal), either the dollar has to become fundamentally weaker or the goods have to become more valuable. The latter feels more difficult than the former at this point. However, the side effects of a weaker dollar may not be worth weakening it.

This is the most important comment here. The US rebuilt nations' economies after World War II by printing dollars and buying goods from those countries. In return, the dollar became the world reserve currency and did not suffer massive inflation despite printing so much of it. It's a supply and demand thing, just like any good or service. There was a ton of demand for the dollar, so printing more (increasing supply) did not crash the "price" of the dollar (inflation is the price/value of the dollar decreasing). We printed a ton of dollars during covid but it didn't result in hyperinflation like what happens with, say, Iran or South American currencies because the demand for dollars was still so very high.

Re: De-dollarization: Is the US dollar losing its dominance? (2025)

#266

Post by AnimalMuppet » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 5:32 PM UTC

minkeymaniac wrote: post #87

quadyeast wrote: post #73

uhm, they need to proof thier article "This increased demand has in turn partly driven the current bull market in gold, with prices forecast to climb toward $4,000/oz by mid-2026."

Article is from July 2025, Gold was 3362 at that time

So gold is up 50% in six months? That's... quite a bit.

Re: De-dollarization: Is the US dollar losing its dominance? (2025)

#267

Post by chmod775 » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 5:32 PM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #139

Jtsummers wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of us see it, but many others seem to be embracing it and trying to hasten it for reasons unknown. They pine for the glory days of post-WWII US hegemony but are actively undoing the institutions that were instrumental in US economic and political power at that time. They have no coherent world view, they are severely confused, but unfortunately numerous.

I actually have a greater disgust for those who see it but don't act. I think this line from an incredibly relevant book is precisely this: > "Your ‘little men,’ your Nazi friends, were not against National Socialism in principle. Men like me, who were, are the greater offenders, not because we knew better (that would be too much to say) but because we sensed better. Those who act on behalf of evil are not free from…

The US wasn't exactly "friendly", but comparing US hegemony to Nazi Germany is a bit much, don't you think? /s

Re: De-dollarization: Is the US dollar losing its dominance? (2025)

#268

Post by tyuu » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 5:32 PM UTC

znnajdla wrote: post #131

IshKebab wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gold is not "real money", come on.

A goat or a sheep cost roughly the same in gold today as it cost 2000 years ago during the Roman Empire. Gold is the only “real money” in the sense that it is the only stable measure of the value of basic needs over centuries. https://chatgpt.com/share/696fb3e8-91d4-800a-9b2b-32eacdadeb...

A goat costs exactly (not roughly) the same in goats today as it cost 2000 years ago. So by that measure a goat is the only stable measure of the value of basic needs over centuries.

Re: De-dollarization: Is the US dollar losing its dominance? (2025)

#269

Post by DowsingSpoon » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 5:33 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #167

munk-a wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a very sudden shift though - those options have existed but not generally been seriously considered. The US was seen as a bastion of stability and while sanctions could drastically impact a country's ability to trade due to the reliance on US currency exchange it has arguably been used relatively scarcely. The change is that suddenly the US isn't a bastion of stability and having an independent trading curre…

The U.S. is as stable as it gets. It has been one continuous republic and has 250 years of legal stability and a history of paying its debts. It has 4.2% GDP growth, with the largest economy in the world and growing.

There more to stability than continuity of government. Though, that definitely is important.

It’s bad enough that America’s foreign policy lately swings wildly every four years. More recently, it’s been acting aggressive toward allies, and making very strange and unpredictable moves.

The USA’s tariff policies are, frankly, utterly insane. Yes, I do mean the tariffs are irrational and incoherent. The approach to the tariffs has been overly aggressive. They’ve been changing almost daily, at times. Now, tariffs are specifically a thing that must be stable and predictable on a multi-year horizon. This must be, at least, off-putting to other governments, and to any companies wishing to do business in or adjacent to the USA.

Monkeying with the Fed is dangerous and basically unprecedented. This is going to make people nervous because it marks the end of an era of stability in monetary policy. We may be at the start of a new era where interest rates, much like the tariffs, change frequently for bad reasons or for no reason at all. Who can say?

And THAT is the problem.

Re: De-dollarization: Is the US dollar losing its dominance? (2025)

#270

Post by renewiltord » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 5:33 PM UTC

silasjohnson123 wrote: post #218

renewiltord wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. People are actively trying to repair something which cannot be fixed. Now that the US century is over, the only way forward is for the US to use present military power as a cudgel. Given that the multipolar world is nigh, the only path forward is through. If America and her erstwhile allies are no longer aligned, then any attempt by America to repair this is doomed. Consequently, Trump’s approach is the only…

This is a self fulfilling prophecy. It may only be over because the administration is actively trying to create the multi-polar world. It could absolutely be fixed by Congress re-asserting its power.

Something that is “already over” cannot be “un-over”. That’s not how “is already over” works. It means it’s done, finito, not a prophecy but a historical fact. We have to move on. And that means less interference in internal European affairs like Ukraine-Russia and more protection of our interests like consolidation of power over the Atlantic, the Arctic, and the Americas.