Here’s an interesting story at Fortune about the various alternatives to the U.S. dollar, some which could function as the world’s reserve currency. IMF SDRs come out on top with gold second. After that, there are a few odd-ball currencies, none of which I’d heard of before.

It’s funny how, for gold, the author starts out with the gold bar vending machine recently installed in an Abu Dhabi hotel, as if the whole idea of gold as money is just some sort of a novelty when, in fact, wealthy individuals all around the world are trading in more and more of their paper money for the metal, that trend not likely to change anytime soon.