> There’s a distinction between freedom to trade and legal tender. uh? Obviously? The enforcement of a legal tender implies in a blatant lack of freedom to trad

> There’s a distinction between freedom to trade and legal tender. uh? Obviously? The enforcement of a legal tender implies in a blatant lack of freedom to trade in whatever currency the parties want. It's an >implication<, not an equality. > For private transactions, I can often use a different currency provided my trading partner agrees. > In most cases where you feel like you are forced to transact in the local currency, you are being forced by your trading partner not by their government. No. At least in the United States, Canada, UK, Brazil, most if not all countries in Europe (and probably all countries where Euro is the currency), and Australia (that I know of), any transaction inside their own territories to be deemed legal has to be made with the national currency. > I somewhat regularly use USD currency in countries when that’s not the local legal tender. This is very common in the Caribbean and Central America. It’s commonly accepted (though less frequently done) in Europe. In some cases, shopkeepers have even arranged to offer me currency conversion services (often on their credit card machine) to facilitate their customers' preference to use a different currency. Paying with USD in countries with other currencies on you credit card? No wonder you think there are not restrictions on what currency you can use. You're basically letting yourself be scammed. https://thepointsguy.com/2015/06/dynamic-currency-conversion/ https://thepointsguy.com/2015/06/dynamic-currency-conversion... The fact that it appears that the merchant is accepting your money in USD (through DCC) doesn't mean they really are. It means that the conversion is done at their end. You might say they accept you paying in cash, then sure... In this case, they do. They might do so both legal or illegally. Now you're talking about tourism or things like small restaurants... things are more relaxed. Now try to do the same for large transactions between companies and, as I said, in most places – but not all – it'll be both illegal & enforced (and the banking system complies with these laws, so this is the first barrier to do so... unless you're talking about big companies that can have a holding overseas and so on).