NewsMeter
97% of the US dollar's purchasing power has been erased since the Federal Reserve opened in 1913, per Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data: a 1913 dollar buys roughly three cents today, or about $33 to $34 in 2026 equivalent.
That figure compounds across 113 years of monetary history, through the Great Inflation of the 1970s, the end of gold convertibility in 1971, and the 2021-23 price spike.
Bitcoin ($BTC), built around a fixed 21 million-coin supply as a direct counter to open-ended currency issuance, trades near $79,852 in early September 2026.
The 1971 break from gold convertibility removed the last hard anchor on monetary expansion and visibly steepened the dollar's decline. Before it, the erosion was measurable but bounded.
Keep reading