There is no single best currency for every kind of saving. Our research found three assets with three different jobs: the US dollar for liquidity, gold for long-term insurance, and Bitcoin for high-risk upside.

The Swiss franc was the strongest government-issued currency in the study. Yet even the franc failed to beat US inflation in most long holding periods. Gold protected purchasing power more often, while Bitcoin produced far higher returns over its much shorter history and charged investors with repeated crashes.

The main lesson is simple. A saver first needs to decide what the money must do. Cash for next month’s bills has a different job from wealth meant to last for decades.

What “Best Currency” Means in This Study

People often use currency, cash, and savings as if they mean the same thing. They do not.

In this study, “money” includes seven government-issued currencies, gold, and Bitcoin. The seven currencies are the US dollar, euro, British pound, Swiss franc, Singapore dollar, Japanese yen, and Chinese yuan.

Gold and Bitcoin are not everyday currencies for most people. We included them because savers use both as alternatives to government money and because neither has a central issuer that can create more supply at will.

The research judged each form of money by four practical questions. Did it hold its value over time? Could a saver sell or use it during a crisis? How severe were the losses along the way? Could an owner move and control it without depending entirely on one institution?

This produces a broader answer than a simple exchange-rate table. A currency can be stable and still lose purchasing power. An asset can deliver a large return and still be unsuitable for emergency savings.

How the Research Was Conducted

We ran three return tests and then built a seven-part scorecard. All figures use data available through July 10, 2026. The charts draw on BeInCrypto Research calculations using the London Bullion Market Association, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Federal Reserve H.10 exchange-rate series, IMF reserve data, World Gold Council, RWA.xyz, and CoinGecko. Individual claims link to supporting sources in the text.

Test 1: What Happened to $100 from 1971?

The first test starts in 1971, when the United States ended the dollar’s convertibility into gold. That change marked the beginning of the modern system of freely floating government-issued currencies.

We asked what happened if a saver converted $100 into each available form of money in 1971 and held it until the study’s cutoff date. We then translated the final value back into US dollars.

Alongside those returns, we plotted an inflation line using the US Consumer Price Index. It shows how much $100 had to become to buy the same broad basket of goods and services. By July 2026, the answer was about $815.

The test measures the money itself. It excludes bank interest, bond yield, gold storage costs, trading fees, taxes, and other income or expenses. A dollar, therefore, remains a nominal $100 throughout the chart, even though its buying power falls.

This choice matters. A saver who held Treasury bills or an interest-paying account would have done better than someone holding banknotes. The same principle applies to interest earned on deposits in other currencies.

Test 2: A common starting point in 2013

Four of the nine assets could not take the full 1971 test. Bitcoin and the euro did not exist. The Chinese yuan was not freely tradable, and comparable Singapore dollar data starts later.

We therefore repeated the exercise from the end of 2013. This gave all nine assets the same starting date and allowed Bitcoin to complete at least one full 10-year holding period.

In this test, $100 needed to become $144 to match US inflation. Bitcoin reached $8,381 and gold reached $342. 

The Swiss franc finished at $110 and was the only fiat currency to beat the dollar, although it still missed the inflation target.

Test 3: Rolling five-year and 10-year periods

A single start date can flatter or punish an asset. Someone who bought gold near its 1980 peak had a very different experience from someone who bought it in 2001.

To reduce that start-date problem, we tested every available five-year and 10-year holding period in annual steps. A 10-year window beginning in 1971 was one observation. The next began in 1972, then 1973, and so on.

For each window, we asked a yes-or-no question: did the money rise faster than US inflation? The final percentage is the share of windows in which it succeeded.

Bitcoin beat inflation in all four of its available 10-year windows. That perfect result comes from a short and favourable sample. Gold succeeded in 59% of 10-year windows. The Swiss franc managed 22%, the yen 24%, and the pound and dollar cash recorded 0%.

The Seven-Part Scorecard

Returns tell only part of the story. We also scored each asset from 1, or weak, to 5, or strong, across seven traits: supply discipline, market liquidity, trust, inflation protection, behaviour during crises, portability, and price stability.

The scores combine market data with editorial judgement. They are a framework for comparing different risks, rather than a price forecast or a promise of future performance.

The Swiss franc earned the highest raw score at 30 out of 35. Gold followed at 28. The US dollar and Singapore dollar scored 27.

However, the total alone does not decide the final choice. Two assets can earn similar scores while doing the same job. A useful combination needs assets whose strengths cover different weaknesses.

The Cost of Volatility

We compared annualised US-dollar returns with each asset’s worst peak-to-trough fall from 2014 to July 2026. A peak-to-trough fall, or drawdown, measures how far an asset dropped before it began to recover.

For this chart, short-term US Treasury bills act as a realistic low-risk dollar cash proxy. That is different from the zero-interest cash assumption in the long-run currency tests, and the chart labels the change.

The result shows the trade-off clearly. Assets with small price falls generally produced low returns. Bitcoin produced the largest return and the deepest loss.

The Three Assets that Survived the Test

The final three did not finish first in every category. They survived because each solves a different savings problem.

1. US Dollar: The Operating Money

The dollar remains the world’s main reserve currency. Central banks hold it, companies borrow in it, and a large share of global trade is priced or settled through it.

It accounted for 56.9% of disclosed foreign-exchange reserves at the study’s cutoff date. That network creates constant demand and gives dollar markets unmatched depth.

This is especially important during a panic. Borrowers and investors often need dollars to repay debts or meet urgent obligations, so demand can rise even when the crisis began in the United States.

For a saver, this makes the dollar easy to buy, sell, transfer, and spend in many countries. It also makes dollar cash or short-term US government debt useful for emergency liquidity.

The Dollar’s Weakness is Purchasing Power

The same dollar that worked well during crises performed badly as a 55-year store of value. It stayed at $100 in nominal terms while the inflation hurdle rose to $815.

Since 2013 alone, dollar cash lost about 30% of its US purchasing power. Interest can offset part of that loss, but the result depends on the rate paid and the tax charged on the interest.

The dollar’s global share has also declined. It represented about 71% of disclosed reserves in 1999, compared with 56.9% in the study.

The decline has been gradual. No single rival currency has replaced it. Central banks have spread part of their reserves into gold and smaller currencies.

Debt and Sanctions Add Longer-Term Risk

US federal debt stood near 120% of annual economic output. Higher debt does not automatically cause a currency crisis, but it can limit policy choices and increase pressure to tolerate inflation.

The freezing of about $300 billion of Russian central-bank reserves after the invasion of Ukraine revealed another risk. Dollar assets held through banks and custodians can be blocked by governments.

That lesson matters most to states and sanctioned entities, but it also explains why some central banks have increased their gold holdings. Gold held directly does not depend on another country’s payment system.

Digital Finance is Extending the Dollar’s Reach

Stablecoins and tokenised US Treasury products have carried the dollar onto blockchain networks. At the cutoff date, the market included hundreds of billions of dollars in dollar-backed stablecoins and about $15 billion in tokenised Treasuries.

These products add new settlement routes. They still depend on dollar assets and therefore extend the dollar system rather than replace it.

Verdict: The dollar remains the strongest choice for liquidity and near-term obligations. Cash alone is a weak long-term inflation hedge.

2. Gold: The Long-Term Insurance

Gold produced the strongest 55-year result. The notional $100 investment grew to $9,436, far above the $815 inflation line.

Its advantage is simple. No government issues gold, and no central bank can create more of it with a policy decision. It also has a long global market and no issuing government that can default.

Gold therefore protects against a different risk from dollar cash. It can benefit when investors lose confidence in currencies, public debt, or financial institutions.

Gold Did Not Protect Savers All the Time

The long-run return hides long periods of disappointment. Gold beat US inflation in 59% of rolling 10-year windows, which means it failed in about four out of ten.

Its worst 10-year period lost about 8.3% a year after inflation. A buyer near the 1980 peak then waited roughly two decades for a durable recovery.

By contrast, gold’s most recent 10-year period returned about 10% a year after inflation. It was the strongest rolling decade since 2011.

The Current Rise is Broad, Not Only a Dollar Story

Gold reached records in dollars, euros, pounds, yen, and yuan. When the same asset rises against several major currencies, the move reflects concern about government money more broadly.

That pattern is one reason we describe gold as insurance. It can respond to risks that affect several countries at once.

Central banks bought 863 tonnes of gold in 2025. It was the fourth consecutive year of unusually strong official demand.

Those purchases do not guarantee further price gains. They do show that national reserve managers increasingly use gold alongside government bonds.

Storage is Gold’s Main Practical Weakness

Physical gold is heavy, costly to secure, and difficult to move in large amounts. Gold held through a fund or bank is easier to trade, but the saver then depends on a custodian.

Governments have also restricted private ownership in the past. The United States sharply limited private monetary-gold ownership from 1933 until the 1970s.

Источник: BeInCrypto