Euro Currency Index points). The Euro Currency Index started on 4 January 1971 with 100 points. Before the introduction of the European single currency on 1 January 1999, an exchange rate of 1 Euro = 1.95583 Deutsche Mark was calculated. On April 19, 1971, the Euro Currency Index gained 99.67 points calculated with an all-time low. Until 3 December 1979, the index rose by 68.0 percent to 167.43 points. With the depreciation of the Deutsche Mark against the major currencies, the index fell to mid-1980s. On 3 May 1985, the Euro Currency Index was at level 122.26 points, up by 27.0 percent. The
World currency Currency). Some of the world's currencies are still pegged to the dollar. Some countries, such as Ecuador, El Salvador, and Panama, have gone even further and eliminated their own currency (see dollarization) in favor of the United States dollar. Only two serious challengers to the status of the United States dollar as a world currency have arisen. During the 1980s, the Japanese yen became increasingly used as an international currency, but that usage diminished with the Japanese recession in the 1990s. More recently, the euro has increasingly competed with the United States dollar in international finance. The euro inherited its