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Comment by seibelj | Hacker News Reader

One theory is “petro dollars” - Saudi Arabia mandates all of their oil is purchased in dollars, thus ensuring global demand for dollars as every country needs oil. In return, the US has their back unconditionally. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrodollar_recycling#Petrod...

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I’m sure it’s been asked and answered before but is there a realistic alternative to USD for such transactions? I imagine Euros would be the next-best bet, being the second-most traded currency.

Edit: While I don’t agree with the person below who replied saying crypto could fill this gap, I don’t think they should be downvoted to the point where we can’t reply. I even hit the “vouch” button but it’s still not possible.

See the "Political events" section in that wikipedia page.

So back in the 00s Iraq tried to use Euros then got invaded and then reverted to USD. A couple of other near-pariah states (Iran and Libya) have offered to accept Gold and/or Euro but it hasn’t taken off. It’s interesting right enough and should maybe considered a warning to anyone who does think about shifting away from USD, but I’m still curious if there’s even a small amount of consideration given to alternatives today

The serious proposal is that the petrodollar be replaced with a basket of currencies, rather than one single foreign currency.

There are some who believe that this is the real reason why we invaded Iraq; Saddam kept trying to sell oil for Euros instead of dollars.

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