The global empire is tired.  Its real economic output is being surpassed by new, rising powers.  It has issued so much debt that there's no hope of really paying it back.  Its people are used to the good life and are less productive than before, and its prices are too high and can't come down without a disaster.  It has been hit by financial crisis after financial crisis.  Everyone in the know is saying the empire's days are numbered.

But the empire has one last trick.  It manages to get the bankers and politicians in all major economies to change their monetary system so totally that the empire is suddenly much wealthier.  (Don't ask me why those countries agreed to it!)  The empire lasts another half-century in splendor and comfort.

2010s America?  Good guess, but it was 1870s Britain.  Britain talked the US, Germany and France into abandoning silver as money and using gold exclusively.  The Bank of England, which had gold but not silver, suddenly got rich, relatively.

Perhaps, the reason why the US and Germany foolishly abandoned silver was , like Napoleon said, bankers have no loyalty to their countries.

We've seen this movie before.  Substitute cryptocurrencies for gold, and gold for silver, and it's the same script.  More or less.  I suspect it will end the same way.