I don't expect the US to leave BW altogether, just reduce global overwatch, reduce the number of MFNs, maybe add some tariffs.

The global reserve does indeed have advantages. But it's not clear that backing away from naval overwatch for all nations would cause that to change. Removing availability of the US market might.

Meanwhile, both Russia and China are pushing their own currency as a replacement, but nobody wants to give them that advantage. IMO, that's going to be true for whatever local hegemons that arise (e.g. Turkey, South Africa).

Maybe we go back to gold/silver with the constraints that come along with that (BTW, check Ahamed's "Bankers Who Broke the World").

As far as a crypto replacement, it's possible, but to be actual money (as opposed to a Vegas-like asset class) it would need to be fiat of some nation - and then the same political issues apply. We've seen that nominally linking it to a fiat currency (US dollar) doesn't work at all.

I'd agree 100% on "you never know".

Hope you had a great New Year's. I live in a cohousing community. Up to the pandemic, we had a NY Day celebration (music and dancing in our ‘common-house’). It's been on hold until this year. Everyone antigen-tested beforehand. It felt almost like old times, although, as one of my neighbors put it on stage: "I know there are plenty of other super spreader events you could have gone to today - thanks for coming to this one!" In spite of that, no Covid-infected reports so far.