How Long Until People Don't Use Coins Anymore?

Korean small currency in circulation per inhabitant in Canadian Dollars
31 banknotes worth ~CAD$1 (exact value is CAD$1.18)
47 coins worth ~50¢
187 coins worth ~10¢
39 coins worth ~5¢
156 coins worth ~1¢

South Korea considered following the Canadians and demonetizing the smallest coin, and converting the dollar banknote into a coin. But they decided that would not be a long term solution for many of the reasons described in the previous post.

Instead, they decided the smarter thing to do would be to demonetize all the coins and introduce smartphone apps or cards to replace coins. Although the smallest banknote will not be demonetized, they won't have to replace as many because people will naturally stop using it as they do more transactions electronically.

The USA cannot do exactly the same thing because we don't demonetize money ever by policy. The only thing we can do is stop minting new coins.



The US Presidential dollars outweigh the circulating 12. 1 billion $1 banknotes by 71.5%.

Quick comparison of Euro coins and US coins minted since 1999 (in billions). The EMU and USA have roughly the same population, but only the five cent piece has similar production stats.

€0.01	34.2	$0.01	153.4
€0.02	26.3		
€0.05	20.3	$0.05	 25.3
€0.10	14.6	$0.10	 45.7
€0.20	11.2	$0.25	 49.2
€0.50	 6.1	$0.50	  0.2
€1.00	 7.2	$1.00	  4.4
€2.00	 6.1		
EUR	126.0	USD	278.2

Thank you.

This thread is primarily about coins.

At the end of 1998, the total coin issued in the USA was worth $25.4 billion. The total coins issued in the Euro Area was by definition zero as production was about to begin.

From 1999 through 2018 the ECB produced €28.0 billion in coin of which €19.4 billion was the €1 and €2 coin.

Despite having a solid base of coins the US Mint produced another $24.1 billion in coins of which $4.4 was dollar coins (and $12.3 billion was quarters).

The massive discrepancy between numbers of coins in the USA vs the ECB makes it logical that the USA is conducting far more small cash transactions than the Euro Area.
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Now, relative to GDP Europe has much more cash than the USA. At the end of 1988 the ratio to GDP was:

United States 4.4%
France 4.1%
Italy 5.2%
Germany 6.8%
Belgium 7.5%
Netherlands 7.7%

At end of 2017
United States 8.2%
Euro area 10.7%

Given that the US $100 banknote is primarily circulating overseas, I would say that the Euro Area is much more likely to use banknotes as a store of value than the USA.

The €20 is a relatively unimportant banknote in the Euro Area. The primary banknote is the €50 which is midway between useful for transactions and for store of value.

In the USA the $50 is the least popular banknote (other than the $2). The primary banknote for transactions is the $20.

Great comparative statistics, @Paco. Thanks for bringing those to the table.

Would we infer from that last table that EMU is relying less on cash for transactions than U.S.?

Get rid of the dollar bill (like every other country did) and people will want it.

Want? Never. Put up with...yes. After a generation has passed who never had an option, it would simply be "what is."

History has proven, over and over, even until recent times, that the people who have had the most disposable income - which has generally always been the US - would rather have the convenience of currency.

Its mainly only us collectors who like (any of) the dollar coins...and mostly in our albums and 2X2s.

... and drives me crazy when I get them from an ATM, to the exclusion of smaller denominations

Although the idea that coins are heavier than banknotes has been discussed, and that causes higher vending machine costs. But I also believe that a country needs more coins than banknotes. My reasoning is that people tend to leave coins in jars or drawers, while banknotes (even small ones ) tend to stay in wallets or money clips.

For example lets look at Euro Area vs the three Scandinavian countries Norway, Denmark and Sweden for coins/banknotes roughly equivalent coins to the €1 and €2. Norway and Denmark has almost the same number of coins circulating per inhabitant as the Euro Area.

€1 Euro coin (21.1 per inhabitant)
€2 Euro coin (17.8 per inhabitant)

10kr Norwegian coin (22.4 per inhabitant)
20kr Norwegian coin (16.6 per inhabitant)

10kr Danish coin (21.0 per inhabitant)
20kr Danish coin (22.1 per inhabitant)

10kr Swedish coin (21.4 per inhabitant)
20kr Swedish banknote (5.2 per inhabitant)

Sweden, uses a banknote instead of a coin for the 20kr value which is roughly €2. It is the last of the developed European countries to have such a small value banknote.But given the a dramatically lower circulation of the banknote than the coin, Swedes have to contend with 5 grams of 20kr banknotes per inhabitant, while Norwegians have to handle 219 grams of 20kr coins per inhabitant. Sweden believes the higher replacement costs are traded off by lower costs of handling the weight of the coins in a secure way.


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If that is true,then the USA might have to replace the 12 billion circulating $1 banknotes with 20 billion $1 coins (estimating conservatively),

That is 356,400 tons of $1 coins by my calculations. That's a lot of weight to move around in armored trucks.

Fair enough.

But I said "want" as in people will want their change. If a store owes you a dollar for a transaction, you will want that dollar coin as opposed to nothing at all.