[datalist]

Slow down, "de facto world currency" and "most banks" is somewhat exaggerated.

The dollar is still a very strong currency and in many areas the leader, but it is still not the world currency. Equally, banks do offer sometimes accounts denominated in USD but this applies mostly to larger banks, is typically a special kind of package, and is a classic foreign currency account you can open for GBP, EUR, SGD, and many other currencies too.

[jjeaff]

It is most definitely the most used currency for international trade worldwide. It also makes up 64% of all known central bank's foreign currency reserves. If we were to declare a world currency, it would most definitely be USD. Hence why the poster used the term "defacto" I suppose.

[datalist]

Hence I wrote "strong" and "leader in many areas".

"World currency" implies more than a dominant use in international transactions though.

My overall point is the statement as-is (currency and banks) is somewhat exaggerated.

[smallnamespace]

Currency has three main uses: as a unit of settlement (medium of exchange), unit of account, and as a store of value.

USD is by far the leading currency for all three use cases, and you can tell it's the de facto world currency because even international transactions between non-USD-using parties use USD by default.

Whenever a Japanese bank and a Chinese bank transact, it's in dollars. Whenever Venezuela and Cuba transact, it's also in dollars. Whenever international business happens, also in dollars.

This pattern repeats to the tune of 95%+ of the nominal value of all world transactions. Many countries also peg their currency to the USD, e.g. HKD is basically the US dollar.

That's clearly not true for any other currency, and certainly not crypto. I mean, at what point would you agree that it's really the world currency — only when every single transaction is actually denominated de jure in dollars?

[petraeus]

the Usd is the de-facto reserve currency of the world, its how america is able to export its inflation and keep printing money without diluting the value of the dollar.