The digital backbone of the post-dollar world

ONE of the great illusions is that money is paper, or coins, or those numbers you see on your online banking app. In reality, money is code.

- Peter McGahan

In a post-dollar world that's rapidly taking shape, it’s the one who controls the software, the rails, and the rules embedded in the system who has the power.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve tracked how the world is shifting away from the US dollar through trade agreements, sanctions backfires and commodity-led settlement systems. This week, I'll cover the digital engine powering it all.

I'll start with the basics. The old system where global trade cleared in dollars through New York-based banks and SWIFT messages was never neutral. It was a legal and technical web dominated by US and European institutions. That worked fine if you were on the right side of Washington. Less so if you weren't.

But now, alternative networks are being built, not just different currencies, but entirely different plumbing.

Project mBridge is one of them. A collaboration between many countries including China, the UAE, Hong Kong and Thailand, backed by the Bank for International Settlements, it lets countries settle trade using digital versions of their own currencies. In a pilot, 20 banks across four countries pulled it off: real money, real-time, no dollars touched. That isn’t boring. It’s revolutionary.