Too Long; Didn't Read
America once tied the value of its currency to the precious metal gold. But in 1971, President Nixon officially ended the gold standard by forbidding the Federal Reserve from exchanging gold for U.S. dollars. The US dollar is backed by the perception that it is valuable, and that the relative value of each dollar will remain fairly stagnant, or decrease only slightly. Yet the absence of a clear standard of value for the US dollar explains why many gravitate towards cryptocurrency as a more secure alternative with a definition of value.