The U.S dollar, as the world’s leading reserve currency has been that money of choice. Approximately 65% of all U.S. dollars are currently being used outside the United States, 80% of trade finance was conducted in dollars and close to 85% of forex trade volume involved the dollar.

But dollars are hard to come by in legal ways. Aggravated by limited foreign reserves and fixed exchange rates pegging the national currency at artificially high rates to other currencies, black market currency trading has flourished.