[nickcarraway]

Well, you are claiming that there is only paper based currency and gold-backed currency. Clearly, there are currencies that don't fall in either camp.

Also, I think you are jumping to a huge conclusion that BRICS countries are going to have a gold-backed currency, despite what they say. I don't think it's as easy as you think.

If you just said the U.S. made some big mistakes, I's agree. But your implied belief that all the countries besides the U.S. are infallible, honest, ethical, trustworthy, and are without a myriad of other problems is where you lose me.

[Right_Wing_Madman]

you are claiming that there is only paper based currency and gold-backed currency.

Historically, these have been only two types of currencies.

1. A "paper-based" currency is one whose money supply is determined by a king, treasury, legislature, or bank and has no limits to its supply.

2. A "gold-based" currency whose money supply is tied to actual physical gold. Of course, you don't have to use gold. You can use queen conch seashells, as long as its supply is limited. But for a number of reasons, people have preferred gold as the monetary base in the past 5,000 years. Cryptocurrencies, whose supply is limited by its code, may be used sometime in the future.

Clearly, there are currencies that don't fall in either camp.

Which ones? To my knowledge, all countries in the world right now use a paper currency.

I think you are jumping to a huge conclusion that BRICS countries are going to have a gold-backed currency, despite what they say. I don't think it's as easy as you think.

And it's not as difficult as you think. The United States and Europe exclusively used gold-based currencies from about 1700 to the 1930s.

But your implied belief that all the countries besides the U.S. are infallible, honest, ethical, trustworthy, and are without a myriad of other problems is where you lose me.

If the new currency is a sham, people will abandon it. You can't fool people when it comes to money.