In the space of only a few months both major reserve currencies have experienced traumatic crises. The US’s flirtation with default last July may look, in retrospect, like a storm in a teacup, but it unnerved official holders of dollars around the world. Then came the dramatic deterioration of the long-running euro area sovereign debt crisis, with panic over Greece. If this climacteric of the reserve currency system at the heart of the world economy does not spur serious reform, what will? And