Quote Originally Posted by js207 View Post
Someone I knew from university recently launched a popular new electronic product. It's priced in US dollars. He's in England, the device is manufactured in China - but still they use dollars for it, not pounds or yuan.
I've been thinking for some years that there is a real possiblity that the "electronic dollar" - the unit used for convenience in international online trading - might simply break loose from the US dollar and become the world's first currency without a country, with a value based solely on the global concensus.

The online dollar is the currency of choice for the same historical reasons that English is the first language of the Web. But if the US dollar goes on weakening, the international online community will have the choice of finding another national currency to trade in, or breaking the link to the national currency. The former would be the obvious traditional solution, but I wonder if the Web has enough originality to consider the latter?