Being the world's go-to currency is actually a self-destruct button that eventually kills the very institutions that hold it up.
March 24, 2026
Original Paper
The Maintenance Manual for the Dollar's Second Century: Institutional Capacity, the Triffin Recursion, and American Monetary Leadership
SSRN · 6440061
The Takeaway
This paper formalizes the 'Triffin Recursion,' arguing that currency hegemony is inherently self-undermining. The very process of becoming the global standard erodes the financial depth and transparency that allowed the country to become the incumbent in the first place.
From the abstract
Dollar hegemony is eroding not because challengers are strong, but because reserve currency incumbency systematically undermines its own institutional foundations, a mechanism this paper formalises as the Triffin Recursion. The United States alone holds the institutional transparency, financial depth, and network centrality required to author the architectural response. The question is whether it does so before others define the terms. It introduces the Providence Value Unit (PVU), a framework f