8 ms·

As time goes on, fewer people are alive that predate the EU and more people will perceive it as a lasting institution. Additionally, we've now seen the EU surv

by parsimo2010 9mo ago

As time goes on, fewer people are alive that predate the EU and more people will perceive it as a lasting institution. Additionally, we've now seen the EU survive the departure of a major economic power (the UK). More people are certainly willing to believe in the stability of the EU now. Another major currency is the Yuan, and some countries may be as willing to trade in Yuan to improve relations with China, so perhaps we won't see one single reserve currency but two spheres of influence with most countries maintaining reserves of multiple currencies.

selectodude 9mo ago
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.
- parsimo2010 9mo ago
  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/if using CNY makes your purchase easier then it's going to gain ground on the USD. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/econographics/what-to-watch-as-china-prepares-its-digital-yuan-for-prime-time/ https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/econographics/what-to-...
  - mothballed 9mo ago
    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 (edit: stable coin doesn't help here -- you must still report gains on stable coins as it is still a $0 capital gain which is different than no capital gain). Retailers already dealing with capital gains and with high chargeback rates love it though. For instance, it's usually the cheapest same-day clearing way to buy precious metals online since credit card rates are high (chargeback), ACH takes days, and wires tend to cost $15+ with many banks.
    - linkregister 9mo ago
      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.
      - buckle8017 9mo ago
        > Reticence among retailers predates the capital gains policy of the IRS. The volatility of Bitcoin's value induces excessive The IRS policy is irrelevant, the law always required payment of capital gains. It's consistently been the hardest thing about accepting Bitcoin for payment. Foreign currency payments are largely exempted.
      - jermaustin1 9mo ago
        The volatility of bitcoin is why there is capital gains on every trade, it has nothing to do with the IRS's new crypto policy. If a bitcoin rises or falls by a calculable amount between when you received it vs when you spent a portion of it, you have gains/losses. That has always been required by the IRS to be reported, whether that is a BTC or chicken feathers.
    - Sargos 9mo ago
      You do not need to report a $0 capital gain when using stablecoins. Sure crypto can seem like the wild West with CPAs having different opinions on what little official guidance is out there but that one is simply absurd.
      - mothballed 9mo ago
        CPA Miles Brooks claims you do[] You are required to report capital gains and losses from stablecoins on your tax return (though it’s likely that your gain will be close to 0). [] https://coinledger.io/blog/stablecoin-taxes https://coinledger.io/blog/stablecoin-taxes
  - selectodude 9mo ago
    Paying Chinese companies in RMB isn’t the issue. If I sell something and a Chinese company pays me in RMB, I can’t really do anything with a billion yuan. Can’t buy a company (limitations on foreign ownership), can’t buy property (99-year lease that can be canceled on the whims of the government at any time), can’t buy Chinese debt (terrible yields, very small foreign market access, incredibly opaque laws and accounting), and nobody else in the world wants it so I have no choice but to sell it back to China in exchange for a real currency at whatever horseshit exchange rate they’ve concocted. It’s worthless money and I don’t see anything out of china that would cause that to change.
    - mullingitover 9mo ago
      > Can’t buy a company (limitations on foreign ownership) This is quickly going away[1]. [1] https://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/en/knowledge/publications/ac881831/china-eliminates-all-access-restrictions-to-foreign-investors-in-the-manufacturing-sector https://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/en/knowledge/publication...
    - jama211 9mo ago
      I mean, you can buy goods and services within china, and you can sell those goods and services. The “horseshit” exchange rate can’t deviate too far from the real value or it incentivises laundering too much. The exchange rate isn’t _that_ bad as a result.
    - throw310822 9mo ago
      I guess this is naive, but can't you use it to buy (or sell it to people who want to buy) Chinese products? It's not like China doesn't have an enormous amount and range of products on offer.
    - KaiserPro 9mo ago
      Thats a feature not a bug. The Chinese government spend a lot of money keeping the value of the RMB low.
      - irishcoffee 9mo ago
  - kevinak 9mo ago
    Funnily enough you can use Bitcoin at most merchants that use a Square PoS device, which is like 25% of merchants in the US. It just takes time for folks to change their behaviors. And why would they, if they're getting X% cashback on all purchases using their credit cards?
    - slongfield 9mo ago
      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.
      - throwaway7644 9mo ago
        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.
        XorNot 9mo ago
        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.
        qwytw 9mo ago
        Well there is a difference between people not buying anything at all and being significantly less than they are now. Consumer goods and services is only the tip of the iceberg. How much do you think debt would cost and how easy would it be for businesses to get credit? Combining a deflationary currency with a growing (or at least non static) economy is bad a everyone who has a basic understanding of history prior to the 1930s can see that. Something like bitcoin would be even much worse than the gold standard.
        throwaway7644 9mo ago
  - tayo42 9mo ago
    Don't we already pay in foreign currency? I do this online with foreign websites and credit cards.
- fakedang 9mo ago
  You can buy with RMB in a lot of countries outside the West, if they have integrated UnionPay or AliPay into their payment processors. But more importantly, you can buy a lot of stuff from the factory of the world. Which is why a lot of countries don't mind holding the RMB. Just not enough for it to become a reserve currency, and certainly no one wants it to become the petroyuan.
- Beretta_Vexee 9mo ago
  It's more of a payment processor issue than a device issue. If you are in a country or area with a large Chinese population, you can usually pay easily in RMB with Alipay. If you use Visa and Mastercard, you are subject to US regulations, sanctions, and embargoes. Many alternative payment processor exist, PIX in Brazil, UPI in India, etc. There are several systems in the EU: Wero, Bizum, BLIK It is urgent that Europeans coordinate to ensure the interoperability of these systems and reduce the influence of Visa and Mastercard. In the event of conflict, this will be the first service to be cut in order to disrupt European countries. The US already use it for coercing European politicians : https://www.courthousenews.com/eu-strongly-condemns-us-sanctions-against-five-europeans/ https://www.courthousenews.com/eu-strongly-condemns-us-sanct...
  - tdrz 9mo ago
    An integrated European payments system should be very high up on the priorities list of the European Commision. I believe every EU country already has its own version of a QR code payment, I don't know why can't they connect "easily" connect them.
    - Beretta_Vexee 9mo ago
      It's complicated, there are two types of applications and networks. 1) Direct payment systems via mobile phone, generally designed initially for payments between friends and family. They have been set up in several countries by neobanks, generally based on the Mastercard network (very common among neobanks). A Latvian neobank may expand into the Baltic countries, but is unlikely to succeed in Portugal. These systems are not interoperable with each other. 2) Systems promoted by banking networks, such as Bizum in Spain, which has expanded to the Iberian Peninsula, and Wero, which is supported by BNP Paribas (France, Belgium, Germany). These networks are independent of Mastercard, Visa, etc., but they seek to favor their members and do not seek to become widespread. Discussions have been ongoing for years to achieve interoperability. The idea for the moment was to let the market structure itself naturally without too much intervention, other than to say “we must move towards interoperability at the European level.” This approach has worked very well for bank transfers, which have become simple, fast, and relatively secure, but it has taken a long time (Europe, consensus, etc.).
parsimo2010 9mo ago
And to add on (rather than edit my comment), I think the saving grace that keeps USD around for a while longer is the last section of the article, "Deposit dollarization in emerging markets" A lot of growing economies don't/can't trust their local currency and they overwhelmingly use USD instead of EUR or CNY. As those economies grow the USD gets a boost that will sustain it for a while over the increasing competition of CNY. But this can't sustain it forever and the US is not doing anything to offset the lost ground in global trade and forex reserves.
lostlogin 9mo ago
> Additionally, we've now seen the EU survive the departure of a major economic power (the UK). I don’t really understand the impact of Brexit on the euro, as Britain wasn’t on it. But clearly they were a key part of the EU. It’ll be interesting to see which side regrets the move more.
- pavlov 9mo ago
  The answer is already clear: Britain regrets the move more. In June 2025, 56% of people in Great Britain thought it was the wrong decision: https://www.statista.com/statistics/987347/brexit-opinion-poll/?srsltid=AfmBOooElqzxlHLfgqXrdopWISauRvJub1AnQjYD4ROCvQkwHS_bkySp https://www.statista.com/statistics/987347/brexit-opinion-po... It's hard to imagine this number would be going down after recent events like USA suddenly threatening arbitrary new tariffs on the UK.
  - Winblows11 9mo ago
    But only 56% in a poll? Is that enough for another referendum and guarantee rejoin? EU politicians have made it clear, ALL UK opt-outs will be gone if UK rejoins, whether it is UK opt-out regarding budget (like paying billions less in annual EU fees like UK did before), to special fishing rights pre-Brexit, to forced to adopt Euro currency and drop Pound sterling.
    - tialaramex 9mo ago
      Rejoining is seen as politically too risky in the short term. As you observe, the UK would not get back its privileged position, there are probably some bargains to be struck but a track to the Euro currency is almost certainly mandatory and that'd be unpopular because people really like our banknotes for some reason and the Euro deliberately just looks like play money, the illustrations deliberately don't show real structures to avoid associations with the nations where those things were built. But while "Leaving was a bad idea" isn't enough to seriously push for actual re-entry to the EU it's certainly a good sign for the EU and for the Euro. The EU is a massive bureaucracy, and I think we underestimated how much "a massive bureaucracy" might be the thing we wanted in this role..
GnarfGnarf 9mo ago
The UK was not part of the Euro economy.
- cjejfjdj482858 9mo ago
  While similar to Denmark and Sweden it retained its own currency, and was also not part of Schengen, It was part of the Single Market.
  - ViewTrick1002 9mo ago
    Sweden does not have an opt out for the euro. Sweden just haven’t completed the stabilization and alignment criteria to formally switch over, arguing that it is voluntary. We had a referendum on the euro back 2003 with a clear mandate to not adopt it and the politicians don’t want to poke the sleeping tiger that is the euro question.
- jacquesm 9mo ago
  It is not counted as such but it is very much tied to it and for the most part goes up and down with the Euro economy barring some own goals.
dnautics 9mo ago
the yuan has major currency controls. there is a real threat of capital flight destabilization if policies change which is why nobody sane would peg tp the yuan as it is now. that said, countries definitely make bad choices.
- Y_Y 9mo ago
  The IMF seem to think it's good enough to peg their special not-a-currency currency to. https://www.imf.org/en/topics/special-drawing-right https://www.imf.org/en/topics/special-drawing-right
  - linkregister 9mo ago
    All IMF participating states have allocations of SDRs. By your definition, the IMF is "pegged" to the currency of Afghanistan.
    - Y_Y 9mo ago
      I'm afraid you may have misunderstood. The SDR is a time-varying basket of USD, EUR, RMB, GBP, and JPY. At time of writing Afghanis are not part of SDR, even though Afghanistan owns some SDR.
      - linkregister 9mo ago
        Thanks for the clarification. The hyperlink you gave was to the general IMF website and did not contain an in-page search hit for "RMB," "Renminbi," or "China". Where can one find the size of the RMB allocation? Presumably the IMF is not bound by the typical RMB capital controls that limit its utility for commercial entities and individuals.
        Y_Y 9mo ago
        12.28% I found that information at the top of the linked page, which I just checked again was indeed the page about SDRs. Maybe they're doing some stupid redirection that's browser dependent.
spookie 9mo ago
The euro has been gaining ground ever since the financial crisis in terms of share of currencies held in global foreign exchange reserves. Less than a third of the US dollar, but still a distant second. Nevertheless, I'm still concerned about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and how intertwined the EU economy is to countries which it has shaky relations with at best.
pendenthistory 9mo ago
Interestingly, there seems to be more good will and amiable vibes between EU nationalities than within the US even. Even being enemies for a thousand years, I don't doubt that Swedish and Danish men would go to war for one another, or French and German. It's complicated yes, but the continent is more unified in spirit than it may seem to an outsider.
- lpcvoid 9mo ago
  German here: I'd go to war (and likely will, with how it's looking currently) for any country that shares our values and is an ally or friend, that's being attacked by an evil force such as russia. And that of course includes my french brothers to the west.
  - samiv 9mo ago
    Finnish reservist here in Germany. Ready to go. Prost!
    - cft 9mo ago
      American expat here in Spain. I do 11 pull-ups every two days and run 7 miles uphill. Ready to go! Salud!
      - samiv 9mo ago
        See you on the battlefield.
        decremental 9mo ago
        [dead]
      - card_zero 9mo ago
        Rarely have prime numbers been so macho.
      - deleted 9mo ago
nonethewiser 9mo ago
I partially agree. But the EU is in a pretty unstable state as incomplete government structure over a collection of peers. "Unstable" does not mean it's going to fall apart. It means it's going to fall apart or coalesce into a single thing (a new country). Or maybe a little of both (a new country with some fringe members leaving). It might not be in 5 or 10 years but it's inevitable. It's not going to operate like this for 50, 100 years. Just run a mental simulation of WW2 playing out except Europe had the EU. So while I agree the EU is becoming more an more normal and important to the average citizen, there will come a time when it has to either solidify further or break apart, and I think it's basically a crapshoot to predict how that will go now when we have basically zero info.
- pegasus 9mo ago
  I wouldn't describe integrating further to the point of becoming more like the US as "unstable". And that's the most likely outcome, which should make the EU more trustworthy as a partner, not less. EDIT: by "like the US" I mean federalization. This video explains it well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnarX3HPruA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnarX3HPruA
  - zarzavat 9mo ago
    > And that's the most likely outcome The recent electoral success of AfD in Germany and the National Front in France seem to point in the other direction.
    - terminalshort 9mo ago
      Yeah, there are already major opposition parties advocating EU exit in many countries already. Try to centralize further and their support will increase. Contrast that with the US when it unified. George Washington won the election 69-0 in the electoral college. And that's not even getting into any of the other massive problems with EU unification.
  - nonethewiser 9mo ago
    >I wouldn't describe integrating further to the point of becoming more like the US as "unstable". More like the US, as-in a country? So also more like Germany, China, South Africa, etc. You are making a false equivalence - being like the US in one extremely non-US specific way does not mean you must be like the US in every other way. I'm not sure you even understand what I'm saying - this has nothing to do with the US vs. the EU or if the US is reliable.
terminalshort 9mo ago
The Yuan is not a freely convertible currency, so not really an option here. The Euro isn't terrible, but it has structural issues in that member states all must take out debt in what is for monetary policy purposes a foreign currency. This generated a debt crisis 10 years ago, which has been papered over, but the structural issues remain unresolved. Also, the Euro has been around now for 25 years. That's not long enough to convince anyone of long term stability.
- direwolf20 9mo ago
  [dead]
fakedang 9mo ago
Saudi Arabia was privately discussing de-dollarization way back in summer last year, when the irrational tariffs were imposed, followed by the Israeli-US strikes on Iran. Make of that what you will.
throw0101a 9mo ago
> Another major currency is the Yuan Is it? CNY seems to be about the same as CHF: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Most_traded_currencies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Most_traded_currencie... In a similar range as AUD and CAD.

selectodude 9mo ago

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.

parsimo2010 9mo ago
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/if using CNY makes your purchase easier then it's going to gain ground on the USD. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/econographics/what-to-watch-as-china-prepares-its-digital-yuan-for-prime-time/ https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/econographics/what-to-...
- mothballed 9mo ago
  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 (edit: stable coin doesn't help here -- you must still report gains on stable coins as it is still a $0 capital gain which is different than no capital gain). Retailers already dealing with capital gains and with high chargeback rates love it though. For instance, it's usually the cheapest same-day clearing way to buy precious metals online since credit card rates are high (chargeback), ACH takes days, and wires tend to cost $15+ with many banks.
  - linkregister 9mo ago
    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.
    - buckle8017 9mo ago
      > Reticence among retailers predates the capital gains policy of the IRS. The volatility of Bitcoin's value induces excessive The IRS policy is irrelevant, the law always required payment of capital gains. It's consistently been the hardest thing about accepting Bitcoin for payment. Foreign currency payments are largely exempted.
    - jermaustin1 9mo ago
      The volatility of bitcoin is why there is capital gains on every trade, it has nothing to do with the IRS's new crypto policy. If a bitcoin rises or falls by a calculable amount between when you received it vs when you spent a portion of it, you have gains/losses. That has always been required by the IRS to be reported, whether that is a BTC or chicken feathers.
  - Sargos 9mo ago
    You do not need to report a $0 capital gain when using stablecoins. Sure crypto can seem like the wild West with CPAs having different opinions on what little official guidance is out there but that one is simply absurd.
    - mothballed 9mo ago
      CPA Miles Brooks claims you do[] You are required to report capital gains and losses from stablecoins on your tax return (though it’s likely that your gain will be close to 0). [] https://coinledger.io/blog/stablecoin-taxes https://coinledger.io/blog/stablecoin-taxes
- selectodude 9mo ago
  Paying Chinese companies in RMB isn’t the issue. If I sell something and a Chinese company pays me in RMB, I can’t really do anything with a billion yuan. Can’t buy a company (limitations on foreign ownership), can’t buy property (99-year lease that can be canceled on the whims of the government at any time), can’t buy Chinese debt (terrible yields, very small foreign market access, incredibly opaque laws and accounting), and nobody else in the world wants it so I have no choice but to sell it back to China in exchange for a real currency at whatever horseshit exchange rate they’ve concocted. It’s worthless money and I don’t see anything out of china that would cause that to change.
  - mullingitover 9mo ago
    > Can’t buy a company (limitations on foreign ownership) This is quickly going away[1]. [1] https://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/en/knowledge/publications/ac881831/china-eliminates-all-access-restrictions-to-foreign-investors-in-the-manufacturing-sector https://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/en/knowledge/publication...
  - jama211 9mo ago
    I mean, you can buy goods and services within china, and you can sell those goods and services. The “horseshit” exchange rate can’t deviate too far from the real value or it incentivises laundering too much. The exchange rate isn’t _that_ bad as a result.
  - throw310822 9mo ago
    I guess this is naive, but can't you use it to buy (or sell it to people who want to buy) Chinese products? It's not like China doesn't have an enormous amount and range of products on offer.
  - KaiserPro 9mo ago
    Thats a feature not a bug. The Chinese government spend a lot of money keeping the value of the RMB low.
    - irishcoffee 9mo ago
- kevinak 9mo ago
  Funnily enough you can use Bitcoin at most merchants that use a Square PoS device, which is like 25% of merchants in the US. It just takes time for folks to change their behaviors. And why would they, if they're getting X% cashback on all purchases using their credit cards?
  - slongfield 9mo ago
    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.
    - throwaway7644 9mo ago
      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.
      - XorNot 9mo ago
        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.
      - qwytw 9mo ago
        Well there is a difference between people not buying anything at all and being significantly less than they are now. Consumer goods and services is only the tip of the iceberg. How much do you think debt would cost and how easy would it be for businesses to get credit? Combining a deflationary currency with a growing (or at least non static) economy is bad a everyone who has a basic understanding of history prior to the 1930s can see that. Something like bitcoin would be even much worse than the gold standard.
        throwaway7644 9mo ago
- tayo42 9mo ago
  Don't we already pay in foreign currency? I do this online with foreign websites and credit cards.
fakedang 9mo ago
You can buy with RMB in a lot of countries outside the West, if they have integrated UnionPay or AliPay into their payment processors. But more importantly, you can buy a lot of stuff from the factory of the world. Which is why a lot of countries don't mind holding the RMB. Just not enough for it to become a reserve currency, and certainly no one wants it to become the petroyuan.
Beretta_Vexee 9mo ago
It's more of a payment processor issue than a device issue. If you are in a country or area with a large Chinese population, you can usually pay easily in RMB with Alipay. If you use Visa and Mastercard, you are subject to US regulations, sanctions, and embargoes. Many alternative payment processor exist, PIX in Brazil, UPI in India, etc. There are several systems in the EU: Wero, Bizum, BLIK It is urgent that Europeans coordinate to ensure the interoperability of these systems and reduce the influence of Visa and Mastercard. In the event of conflict, this will be the first service to be cut in order to disrupt European countries. The US already use it for coercing European politicians : https://www.courthousenews.com/eu-strongly-condemns-us-sanctions-against-five-europeans/ https://www.courthousenews.com/eu-strongly-condemns-us-sanct...
- tdrz 9mo ago
  An integrated European payments system should be very high up on the priorities list of the European Commision. I believe every EU country already has its own version of a QR code payment, I don't know why can't they connect "easily" connect them.
  - Beretta_Vexee 9mo ago
    It's complicated, there are two types of applications and networks. 1) Direct payment systems via mobile phone, generally designed initially for payments between friends and family. They have been set up in several countries by neobanks, generally based on the Mastercard network (very common among neobanks). A Latvian neobank may expand into the Baltic countries, but is unlikely to succeed in Portugal. These systems are not interoperable with each other. 2) Systems promoted by banking networks, such as Bizum in Spain, which has expanded to the Iberian Peninsula, and Wero, which is supported by BNP Paribas (France, Belgium, Germany). These networks are independent of Mastercard, Visa, etc., but they seek to favor their members and do not seek to become widespread. Discussions have been ongoing for years to achieve interoperability. The idea for the moment was to let the market structure itself naturally without too much intervention, other than to say “we must move towards interoperability at the European level.” This approach has worked very well for bank transfers, which have become simple, fast, and relatively secure, but it has taken a long time (Europe, consensus, etc.).

parsimo2010 9mo ago

And to add on (rather than edit my comment), I think the saving grace that keeps USD around for a while longer is the last section of the article, "Deposit dollarization in emerging markets" A lot of growing economies don't/can't trust their local currency and they overwhelmingly use USD instead of EUR or CNY. As those economies grow the USD gets a boost that will sustain it for a while over the increasing competition of CNY. But this can't sustain it forever and the US is not doing anything to offset the lost ground in global trade and forex reserves.

lostlogin 9mo ago

> Additionally, we've now seen the EU survive the departure of a major economic power (the UK). I don’t really understand the impact of Brexit on the euro, as Britain wasn’t on it. But clearly they were a key part of the EU. It’ll be interesting to see which side regrets the move more.

pavlov 9mo ago
The answer is already clear: Britain regrets the move more. In June 2025, 56% of people in Great Britain thought it was the wrong decision: https://www.statista.com/statistics/987347/brexit-opinion-poll/?srsltid=AfmBOooElqzxlHLfgqXrdopWISauRvJub1AnQjYD4ROCvQkwHS_bkySp https://www.statista.com/statistics/987347/brexit-opinion-po... It's hard to imagine this number would be going down after recent events like USA suddenly threatening arbitrary new tariffs on the UK.
- Winblows11 9mo ago
  But only 56% in a poll? Is that enough for another referendum and guarantee rejoin? EU politicians have made it clear, ALL UK opt-outs will be gone if UK rejoins, whether it is UK opt-out regarding budget (like paying billions less in annual EU fees like UK did before), to special fishing rights pre-Brexit, to forced to adopt Euro currency and drop Pound sterling.
  - tialaramex 9mo ago
    Rejoining is seen as politically too risky in the short term. As you observe, the UK would not get back its privileged position, there are probably some bargains to be struck but a track to the Euro currency is almost certainly mandatory and that'd be unpopular because people really like our banknotes for some reason and the Euro deliberately just looks like play money, the illustrations deliberately don't show real structures to avoid associations with the nations where those things were built. But while "Leaving was a bad idea" isn't enough to seriously push for actual re-entry to the EU it's certainly a good sign for the EU and for the Euro. The EU is a massive bureaucracy, and I think we underestimated how much "a massive bureaucracy" might be the thing we wanted in this role..

GnarfGnarf 9mo ago

The UK was not part of the Euro economy.

cjejfjdj482858 9mo ago
While similar to Denmark and Sweden it retained its own currency, and was also not part of Schengen, It was part of the Single Market.
- ViewTrick1002 9mo ago
  Sweden does not have an opt out for the euro. Sweden just haven’t completed the stabilization and alignment criteria to formally switch over, arguing that it is voluntary. We had a referendum on the euro back 2003 with a clear mandate to not adopt it and the politicians don’t want to poke the sleeping tiger that is the euro question.
jacquesm 9mo ago
It is not counted as such but it is very much tied to it and for the most part goes up and down with the Euro economy barring some own goals.

dnautics 9mo ago

the yuan has major currency controls. there is a real threat of capital flight destabilization if policies change which is why nobody sane would peg tp the yuan as it is now. that said, countries definitely make bad choices.

Y_Y 9mo ago
The IMF seem to think it's good enough to peg their special not-a-currency currency to. https://www.imf.org/en/topics/special-drawing-right https://www.imf.org/en/topics/special-drawing-right
- linkregister 9mo ago
  All IMF participating states have allocations of SDRs. By your definition, the IMF is "pegged" to the currency of Afghanistan.
  - Y_Y 9mo ago
    I'm afraid you may have misunderstood. The SDR is a time-varying basket of USD, EUR, RMB, GBP, and JPY. At time of writing Afghanis are not part of SDR, even though Afghanistan owns some SDR.
    - linkregister 9mo ago
      Thanks for the clarification. The hyperlink you gave was to the general IMF website and did not contain an in-page search hit for "RMB," "Renminbi," or "China". Where can one find the size of the RMB allocation? Presumably the IMF is not bound by the typical RMB capital controls that limit its utility for commercial entities and individuals.
      - Y_Y 9mo ago
        12.28% I found that information at the top of the linked page, which I just checked again was indeed the page about SDRs. Maybe they're doing some stupid redirection that's browser dependent.

spookie 9mo ago

The euro has been gaining ground ever since the financial crisis in terms of share of currencies held in global foreign exchange reserves. Less than a third of the US dollar, but still a distant second. Nevertheless, I'm still concerned about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and how intertwined the EU economy is to countries which it has shaky relations with at best.

pendenthistory 9mo ago

Interestingly, there seems to be more good will and amiable vibes between EU nationalities than within the US even. Even being enemies for a thousand years, I don't doubt that Swedish and Danish men would go to war for one another, or French and German. It's complicated yes, but the continent is more unified in spirit than it may seem to an outsider.

lpcvoid 9mo ago
German here: I'd go to war (and likely will, with how it's looking currently) for any country that shares our values and is an ally or friend, that's being attacked by an evil force such as russia. And that of course includes my french brothers to the west.
- samiv 9mo ago
  Finnish reservist here in Germany. Ready to go. Prost!
  - cft 9mo ago
    American expat here in Spain. I do 11 pull-ups every two days and run 7 miles uphill. Ready to go! Salud!
    - samiv 9mo ago
      See you on the battlefield.
      - decremental 9mo ago
        [dead]
    - card_zero 9mo ago
      Rarely have prime numbers been so macho.
    - deleted 9mo ago

nonethewiser 9mo ago

I partially agree. But the EU is in a pretty unstable state as incomplete government structure over a collection of peers. "Unstable" does not mean it's going to fall apart. It means it's going to fall apart or coalesce into a single thing (a new country). Or maybe a little of both (a new country with some fringe members leaving). It might not be in 5 or 10 years but it's inevitable. It's not going to operate like this for 50, 100 years. Just run a mental simulation of WW2 playing out except Europe had the EU. So while I agree the EU is becoming more an more normal and important to the average citizen, there will come a time when it has to either solidify further or break apart, and I think it's basically a crapshoot to predict how that will go now when we have basically zero info.

pegasus 9mo ago
I wouldn't describe integrating further to the point of becoming more like the US as "unstable". And that's the most likely outcome, which should make the EU more trustworthy as a partner, not less. EDIT: by "like the US" I mean federalization. This video explains it well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnarX3HPruA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnarX3HPruA
- zarzavat 9mo ago
  > And that's the most likely outcome The recent electoral success of AfD in Germany and the National Front in France seem to point in the other direction.
  - terminalshort 9mo ago
    Yeah, there are already major opposition parties advocating EU exit in many countries already. Try to centralize further and their support will increase. Contrast that with the US when it unified. George Washington won the election 69-0 in the electoral college. And that's not even getting into any of the other massive problems with EU unification.
- nonethewiser 9mo ago
  >I wouldn't describe integrating further to the point of becoming more like the US as "unstable". More like the US, as-in a country? So also more like Germany, China, South Africa, etc. You are making a false equivalence - being like the US in one extremely non-US specific way does not mean you must be like the US in every other way. I'm not sure you even understand what I'm saying - this has nothing to do with the US vs. the EU or if the US is reliable.

terminalshort 9mo ago

The Yuan is not a freely convertible currency, so not really an option here. The Euro isn't terrible, but it has structural issues in that member states all must take out debt in what is for monetary policy purposes a foreign currency. This generated a debt crisis 10 years ago, which has been papered over, but the structural issues remain unresolved. Also, the Euro has been around now for 25 years. That's not long enough to convince anyone of long term stability.

direwolf20 9mo ago
[dead]

fakedang 9mo ago

Saudi Arabia was privately discussing de-dollarization way back in summer last year, when the irrational tariffs were imposed, followed by the Israeli-US strikes on Iran. Make of that what you will.

throw0101a 9mo ago

> Another major currency is the Yuan Is it? CNY seems to be about the same as CHF: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Most_traded_currencies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Most_traded_currencie... In a similar range as AUD and CAD.