Expert: New World Money could become "Cashless Gold"

06/06/2022 14:00

According to Academician and Minister of the EEC Sergey Glazyev, in the coming years a new currency with the function of the world currency will appear. There is indeed such a trend, but the practical implementation of such a project is limited by a number of important reservations.

According to Sergey Glazyev, Minister for Integration and Macroeconomics of the Eurasian Economic Commission, due to the formation of broad international coalitions, a new world currency may soon appear. He also, TASS reports with reference to the words of the EEC Minister, called for joint efforts to strive for this.

"We are on the threshold of transition to a new monetary and financial system. I am convinced that in the coming years a new world settlement currency will be introduced, based on an international treaty, and international law will be restored. But this requires common efforts, including efforts in the field of people's diplomacy, which unites experts, scientists, entrepreneurs, citizens, all people who care about the fate of the world," - Sergey Glazyev said at the plenary session of the International Forum of People's Diplomacy dedicated to the 5th anniversary of the Eurasian Peoples’ Assembly.

As it follows from the words of Academician Glazyev, the normalization of the situation in the world requires the formation of broad international coalitions. Such coalitions will have to restore international law, and a new world currency will be created on this basis. It "will work in the interests of developing trade and cooperation,"- he added.

Dialogues about the need for a new world reserve currency are resumed with renewed vigor in crises, says Mikhail Zeltser, an expert on the stock market of BCS World of Investments. So it was all the last flashes. However, technically it is very problematic to organize the transition to a universal means of payment; the question of expediency is also relevant, he says.

Against the background of objective geopolitical challenges, the dollar's share is declining in reserves and SWIFT transactions, countries are reducing trade in it, fearing blockages, while increasing bilateral friendly cooperation. And, Mikhail Zeltser states, there are no real reasons to expect the emergence of a new reserve currency yet. Rather, the weight of the same yuan will increase, and, the ruble is clearly in demand against the background of forced bans and the transfer of European partners to the "gas for rubles" system.

In turn, Nikita Dontsov, the head of the Influence communication group, is confident that the issue of creating a new international settlement currency is relevant. Thus, the actual theft of Russian savings in the West — the freezing of the reserves of the Russian Central Bank and the seizure of foreign property of the state and many Russian entrepreneurs — are processes that clearly reduce confidence in the US dollar and the European currency, he notes.

The process of de-dollarization has been discussed for a long time and has been launched in Russia and many other countries, but it is still impossible to get away from this currency by 100%. The prospects of the euro and the dollar as international settlement instruments are extremely vague, the political scientist says, because the former confidence in these instruments has been lost, and in the conditions of accelerated inflation and the unobvious prospects of the US and EU economies, it is not interesting to store in this currency. As well as to carry out calculations and fix the exact amounts in contracts in such a currency, due to unusually high volatility. 

At the same time, says Nikita Dontsov, while the creation of a new supranational currency is possible only theoretically. It is not clear who will administer and issue this currency, how it will be backed up, what will be its uniqueness. Today, in the conditions of the polarization of the world, everyone is trying to switch to settlements in national currencies and this is beneficial to everyone, adding liquidity to their currency. 

Sergey Glazyev's forecast has a place, but most likely, Nikita Dontsov believes, it will be the format of an electronic settlement unit, possibly in the format of a cryptocurrency, modeled on bitcoin — a currency that will not be regulated by sanctions, will be decentralized and relevant everywhere, and most importantly, will enable transnational settlements.

The world will allow the world currency

Recall that the role of a single international currency was claimed by special drawing rights — SDR (Special Drawing Rights), the issuer of which since 1969 was the IMF. Only 40 years later, after the crisis of 2007-08, the Fund had a real hope that the SDR could become the world's reserve money, then they were issued in the equivalent of a quarter of a billion dollars to mitigate the consequences of the crisis. However, as a result, only a few developing countries use the non-cash "IMF currency".

One of the questions is whether a global central bank is necessary for the new world money, or does the blockchain allow us to approach this issue differently? It seems obvious that a coordinating body is still needed.

It is unlikely that its functions can be assumed by the same IMF or the existing World Bank; they will not inspire confidence as controlled by the United States (these organizations are among those that form the notorious "Washington Consensus").

One more clarification is required here. The project of new world money does not necessarily have to be signed by all countries without exception, or even the majority of them. In the current system of international relations, this is practically impossible (although the author of the idea under discussion hopes for a very deep reform of this system). This issue, however, goes beyond both economics and the practical horizon.

But such a universal currency is not only impossible, it is not needed. It is enough that some means of payment is minimally dependent on political decisions and has solid collateral, while being secured by trust. The appearance of such funds is already being discussed (see the link to the very popular material "Tehran offered Russia, China and India a new currency for mutual settlements" at the beginning of the article) and probably can be implemented in the foreseeable future.

Probably, a new international currency could also become a reality, as a project of a very broad coalition of countries, mainly from those who are classified as developing. There is no way to do without competition with the same China, but it also needs to store reserves in some way. It is essential that the "world currency" become not only a settlement currency, but also a reserve one. Such an "anti-dollar" and to a certain extent "anti-euro" could partially replace gold, which is not politicized by its nature, as a former universal monetary instrument. But still — only partially. After all, it will definitely not shine.

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