# 2. Stability of fiat currencies What we call stability of a fiat currency comes from monetary policy, the powers behind it, and the open Market that decides its value. The world takes the Euro and the USD as modern reserve currencies by the Central Banks of several countries. The fractional reserve banking system plus credit and debt have been the primary mechanisms for building trust in fiat currencies' economies. The last century's financial history has shown that this model has been far from perfect but has been the most successful in bringing prosperity to the world. In the last century-plus, there have been around thirty "Non-Domestic Currency Debt Crisis (typically inflationary deleveragings)," causing millions of people to lose their wealth and transactional value. Recent devaluation hits have occurred in Venezuela, Argentina, Mexico, and Brazil. In 2020, due to the pandemic and the inability of most Governments to adapt, countries worldwide had been jeopardizing their citizens' stores of value, AGAIN. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://gaugecash.gitbook.io/gaugecash/whitepaper/gaugecash-a-decentralized-monetary-system/2.-stability-of-fiat-currencies.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.