(I swear I'm going to get back to work after this comment....) In relation to lionhearted's comment and the article, the author of the OP loses me at the parag

(I swear I'm going to get back to work after this comment....) In relation to lionhearted's comment and the article, the author of the OP loses me at the paragraph where they discuss alternatives. The Euro is barely stitched together and various conflicts between the participating countries are really going to prevent it from being recognized as a stable, worldwide reserve currency. There have been some decent articles the past few years about the potential for the yuan to be devalued if the Chinese government were to allow it to float against the dollar. In this case, the yuan may not be quite ready either, although it's probably a better And a last note which always gets lost in these discussions is that the U.S. dollar is supported by the U.S. government and military. If necessary, the government has quite a few options (all mostly worst-case scenarios) where it can exert force (economic or military) to ensure no other currency reaches the international reserve status the dollar still holds. If I get comments from people asking me to elaborate on any of these points, I can in six hours after I get off work :)