Title: World currency - Wikipedia
Headings: World currency
World currency
Contents
History
Spanish dollar (17th – 19th centuries)
Gold standard (19th – 20th centuries)
Pound sterling
U.S. dollar
Euro
Recent proposals (21st century)
Governmental
Single world currency
Difficulties
Limited additional benefit with extra cost
Economically incompatible nations
Wealth redistribution
Usury
See also
References
External links

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Main article: Gold standard
Prior to and during most of the 19th century, international trade was denominated in terms of currencies that represented weights of gold. Most national currencies at the time were in essence merely different ways of measuring gold weights (much as the yard and the meter both measure length and are related by a constant conversion factor). Hence some assert that gold was the world's first global currency. The emerging collapse of the international gold standard around the time of World War I had significant implications for global trade. Distinct from the overarching gold standard system, between the 1860s and 1920s several deliberately supranational currencies existed: national currencies were fixed at par, and mutually-accepted as legal tender in participating countries. Chief among these was the Latin Monetary Union, pegged to the French franc and mainly in use in Romance -speaking European states; but other regional currencies existed, such as that pegged to the Swedish krona and used by the Northern-European countries of the Scandinavian Monetary Union .