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

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

#711

Post by jollyllama » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 9:43 PM UTC

dybber wrote: post #695

jollyllama wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practice, everyone wants to spend their dollars, not their gold, or their bitcoin, or their Euros, and so dollars it will be. What else is there that anyone both with pay with and will be accepted by the other party?

Soon dollars might not be accepted if US companies wants to buy things in the EU, they will have to pay in euros (part of the anti coercion instrument that Macron and others have been talking about the last couple of days)

I don't think it will happen. 10% of EU bank loans that are dollar-denominated [0]. If they cut the flow of dollars into the EU, the debtors of those loans would wind up offering a premium for their goods and services to non-US companies, making them uncompetitive. It would be a roundabout tariff that would hurt the EU countries too much.

[0] https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/financial-stability-publicat...

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

#712

Post by JumpCrisscross » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 9:44 PM UTC

jazzyjackson wrote: post #597

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> US century is already over Maybe, maybe not. We're currently the Soviet Union in the 1970s. Gerontocratic. Sclerotic. Hyped up on a new mythology. And economically uncompetitive on several levels, with the future (then computers, now elecrification) sweeping past us to our applause. Unlike the Soviets, however, we can see it happening and debate it. If '26 and '28 change course, the damage will still be done. But t…

How do you suppose we change the minds of the third of Americans who like having a Gestapo

> How do you suppose we change the minds of the third of Americans who like having a Gestapo

You don't. You work around it.

10 to 20% of Americans will agree with just about any stupid proposal. It's idiosyncratic, however, so even if you shut off that position, they still find representation on other issues. (Unless they're single issue. In that case they're either incredibly powerful, but only when it comes to that issue, or worthless.)

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

#713

Post by tirant » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 9:44 PM UTC

kmeisthax wrote: post #504

chrisco255 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 250 years of legal stability America was never a stable country. That 250 years includes: * A decade of chaos under the impotent Articles of Confederation. * The deliberately engineered election of George Washington to create the illusion of political stability, a reign which only ended because George stepped down voluntarily. * An immediate constitutional crisis the moment a competitive election happened, causing…

For 250 years that sounds very stable compared to many other countries

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

#714

Post by ifwinterco » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 9:44 PM UTC

mullingitover wrote: post #697

ifwinterco wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also draw a comparison with the late imperial stage of other empires, most recently the British. The British Empire actually reached its greatest territorial extent in the 1920s and 30s, but it was overextended, policymaking was becoming increasingly erratic and in hindsight we can see the writing was already on the wall

The British didn't really make unforced errors like Germany did, though. They mostly were forced into a fire sale situation as they were fighting for their lives. Even with everything they sold off, they were still within an inch of surrendering. The French story is similar. They may have been in a slow decline, but the war threw them off a cliff. It's hard to look at what the US is doing and not become extremely ang…

I agree but the difference between the French and the British is the French really didn't have a choice (they got physically invaded).

You could make a very good case that for Britain entering into WW1 was a catastrophic and ultimately unnecessary decision. And you could make a (much more controversial but I think also true) case that entering into WW2 was also not necessary and ultimately fairly catastrophic.

Yet the British elites chose to do both. Pride, hubris, stupidity, maybe well deserved, call it what you want, but in the end British power was given away cheaply. I think what the US is currently doing is foolish but as you say there's also a sort of inevitability about it.

Edit: You could also add the Soviet Union to this, an even more recent example of the end of an empire. Towards the end during the Gorbachev era policymaking went from relatively "normal" (by Soviet standards) to extremely bizarre in a short space of time

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

#715

Post by qwytw » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 9:44 PM UTC

softwaredoug wrote: post #83

snovymgodym wrote: post #3

The international value of the dollar as a reserve and trade currency is inherently tied to the behavior of the US Government and the Federal Reserve. The behavior of the US Government has been very unusual lately, and the independence of the Federal Reserve is actively being challenged. So draw from that whatever conclusions you wish.

It’s not just that This is a gradual decline. From 70% in the 90s to 60% today. Today there are more options like the Euro that didn’t exist in the 90s. People can argue over EU economic stability, but it’s there as reasonable option.

> Today there are more options like the Euro that didn’t exist in the 90s

Yet the Euro peaked back in 2009 and has been declining ever since.

At this point its share is not that massively higher than that of the German mark back in the 90s.

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

#716

Post by cloverich » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 9:46 PM UTC

Workaccount2 wrote: post #534

KaiserPro wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> probably want to model the US Dollar after the Renminbi. I don't see that. Given trump's history, he thinks that going back to tariffs will allow massive tax cuts. As he trades in real estate, tariffs are inconsequential for him

Trump is a populist. He supports tariffs for the exact same reason Bernie Sanders does. There is a reason so many bernie bros jumped to camp Trump in 2016 when (globalist) Hillary won the nomination. There is no secret or conspiracy going on here. Trump is a populist president and is unsurprisingly doing populist things, elected because of his populist stances. At this point you have to have stabbed your eyes out and…

Fascism always wears populisms clothing, but they aren't therefore directly equivalent. Bernie and Trump both support tariffs but for different reasons (and to different degrees). Likewise you can gush about 1950's factory workers for different reasons. One is purely to do with economic power of the lower class, the other is to do with supposed Golden age of American history. They have overlapping bases but that's merely a part of their Venn diagrams.

Also Trump already passed the massive tax cuts based off the assumption of income from Tariff's, and those tax cuts disproportionately benefit the rich. I don't think we really need a conspiracy to explain the likely motivations.

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

#717

Post by ahmeneeroe-v2 » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 9:47 PM UTC

lpcvoid wrote: post #696

ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty caveated. Not exactly a ringing war cry Shares values AND Ally AND Being attacked AND Attacker is evil I think you'll continue to be safe posting on HN

People place individual, stringent conditions on life threatening responses? Keep going, you're on to something there.

Very funny you got me there.

I think you’ll find that threats of violence (which is what your comment is) need to be much more unhinged to be effective deterrents. Remember you’re warning off barbarians (eg us Americans or the Russians), not civilized folk.

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

#718

Post by JumpCrisscross » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 9:47 PM UTC

_verandaguy wrote: post #427

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> US century is already over Maybe, maybe not. We're currently the Soviet Union in the 1970s. Gerontocratic. Sclerotic. Hyped up on a new mythology. And economically uncompetitive on several levels, with the future (then computers, now elecrification) sweeping past us to our applause. Unlike the Soviets, however, we can see it happening and debate it. If '26 and '28 change course, the damage will still be done. But t…

My outsider's POV: the fact that there's a Gestapo-analogue in place already tells me that an electoral solution alone is almost certainly no longer sufficient (or at least, unlikely to be effective) at this point. The Democrats have also had very weak messaging ahead of the midterms. Like, pathetically weak in the current context. This is to say nothing of the hypothetical where the US makes moves against allies' te…

> the fact that there's a Gestapo-analogue in place already tells me that an electoral solution alone is almost certainly no longer sufficient (or at least, unlikely to be effective) at this point

Read up on the American Whig Party and President Andrew Jackson. Or, more recently, Poland. This is absolutely still in a reversible field.

> Democrats have also had very weak messaging ahead of the midterms

Utterly leaderless. In part because a lot of the party is compromised in having covered up Biden.

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

#719

Post by tayo42 » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 9:49 PM UTC

parsimo2010 wrote: post #193

selectodude wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The major benefit of the US Dollar is that you can do things with it. Between export controls, currency controls, laws on foreign ownership, etc, china can pay me all the RMB in the world. I still can’t do a whole lot with it.

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/…

Don't we already pay in foreign currency? I do this online with foreign websites and credit cards.

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

#720

Post by XorNot » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 9:49 PM UTC

throwaway7644 wrote: post #682

slongfield wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other thing about Bitcoin is that it's deflationary, which leads to people holding the currency rather than spending it, as predicted by Econ 101.

We've witness deflationary forces in computer hw for decades and no one is holding off their purchases. Time is scarce and it ultimately forces consumption because otherwise, what would you be saving for? Don't need Econ 101 to understand this basic reality.

Computer hardware actually does things - it is an economic value producer.

Bitcoin is an economic value consumer just to hold it. It does nothing if you have it.