Yes, it would be more accurate to say that historically, currencies were priced against GBP, until the US Dollar took over that role when the US became the world&#x27;s leading economy after WWII.<p>The article&#x27;s <i>mostly</i> correct. Some assertions and definitions aren&#x27;t quite right, as if the author doesn&#x27;t have direct experience but is instead regurgitating their own research&#x2F;reading.<p>For example, they define a &quot;pip&quot; as being equal to a basis point but that&#x27;s not the case. In fact, the reason they&#x27;re called &quot;pips&quot; instead of &quot;bips&quot; (market slang for basis points) is because they&#x27;re <i>not</i> the same thing.[1]<p>Also, the article kind of glosses over the fact that the wholesale (or interbank) FX market (the article uses the term &quot;Spot Market&quot; which is more commonly used to refer to the subset of the interbank market for spot deals) operates at large scale (e.g. a minimum deal size of $100,000). You can only get the tight spreads (&lt;= 1 pip) available in the interbank market if you&#x27;re willing to deal in large sizes.<p>In the same way that the per-unit price for buying several container-loads of cans of beans direct from Heinz will be lower than if you buy a single can from your local retail store, a retail customer looking to exchange $300 can&#x27;t expect to get the interbank rate.<p>1: This page - <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.londonfx.co.uk&#x2F;trading.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.londonfx.co.uk&#x2F;trading.html</a> - (written by a friend and former colleague) gives a more accurate description of what a pip is.