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A Digital Nixon Shock?

US President Richard Nixon’s 1971 decision to end the US dollar’s convertibility into gold had such far-reaching consequences that it took policymakers decades to learn to manage the new system. Now, digital technologies are driving a new monetary revolution that could end the greenback’s global primacy altogether.

PRINCETON – We are approaching the 50th anniversary of the so-called Nixon Shock, one the most decisive ruptures in monetary history. On August 15, 1971, US President Richard Nixon announced in a televised address that he was “closing the gold window.” By ending the dollar’s convertibility into gold (at an official rate of $35 per ounce), Nixon severed the millennia-long link between money and precious metals.

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