Money has changed. Sanctions on Russia’s central bank eliminated its USD, EUR and JPY reserves. This should reduce demand for these currencies as reserve assets, while increasing demand for currencies that can perform the functions of reserve currencies. We believe central banks will act in response to these sanctions, as will private individual actors. To put current events in context, our emerging markets (EM) bond investment team attempted to quantify the emergence of new gold or Bitcoin-backed currency regimes. The bottom-line is that the upside for gold and Bitcoin is potentially dramatic. Specifically, the ... (full story)