When I was young during the 80s and 90s, I remembered those crime thriller movies and series where the bad guys would often demand United States Dollars (USD) for illicit goods transactions and/or ransom amount. Being a naïve kid, I asked my parents why it must be in USD and not Hong Kong or Singapore dollars since the shows were set in those countries, to which they replied, “because it is the most powerful currency in the world”.
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Since the Bretton Woods system started in 1944, USD had slowly gained its ascendancy over the previously dominant currency, the British pound. While the system eventually ended with the delinking of gold to the USD in 1971, and the subsequent rise of other currencies such as the Japanese Yen, Euro, Swiss Francs and later the Chinese Yuan, the greenback (a common nickname for
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