The End of the Dollar Hegemony with Nic Carter - WBD476

Nic Carter is a Partner at Castle Island Ventures and co-founder
and Chairman of Coin Metrics. In this interview, we discuss the
seizure of Russian Central Bank assets by the G7, the demise of
US hegemony, and a multipolar multi-reserve world.


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Whilst it is arguable whether America’s geopolitical reach can be
classed as an empire, the decline of its hegemonic power is
compared to the passing of great empires of the past. Such
analysis shows that there are no fixed dates to assign to the
actual fall of empires; declines are marked by a prolonged
unwinding of influence and cohesiveness.


Nevertheless, the atrophying of empires are signposted by
critical dates: the sacking of Rome by the Visigoths in 410; the
humiliation of Britain caused by the 1956 Suez Crisis; the
symbolic impact on the USSR of the fall of the Berlin wall on
November 9th 1989.


Currently, we are living through equally tumultuous times, and
February 26th 2022 may be one such date for the history books. It
was when the G7, led by the US, seized $630B of Russia’s foreign
reserves.


With the grim humanitarian impacts of the Ukraine Russia conflict
being witnessed on a daily basis, this seemed like an appropriate
non-violent measure. However, its scale and likely impact is and
will be unprecedented.


The role of the US dollar has been eroded over the past few
decades as economic sanctions have been increasingly deployed as
a coercive tool of power. Nevertheless, the G7 freezing Russian
access to its foreign assets is a crossing the Rubicon moment. No
longer will the US dollar be a unifying store of value across the
world. The ramifications are huge.