History Main / RidiculousExchangeRates

** And in the days following Russia's botched invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, the bottom has fallen out -- the ruble's worth has plummeted ''fast'' amid countries and businesses pulling out of deals with Russia. The result is that [[https://www.pcworld.com/article/617917/russian-ruble-now-worth-less-than-roblox-robux-game-currency.html the ruble is worth less than]] ''[[VideoGame/{{Roblox}} Robux]]'' -- that's right, you can buy more with a video game currency than with real-world currency.

* The UsefulNotes/WeimarRepublic's Deutsche mark was one of the best known examples. The common story is that Weimar Germany, saddled with huge debts and reparations from UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, ran the presses until the whole debt was paid, but the famous 1923 hyperinflation was more acutely caused by the Ruhr Crisis, when the country ''missed'' a reparations payment, and the French and Belgians teamed up to occupy the Ruhr Valley, which was Germany's industrial heartland and crippled the country's economy. At its worst, one U.S. dollar was worth 420 ''quadrillion'' marks (that's a 42 and ''16'' zeroes), the country at one point printed a 100 quadrillion mark banknote, and even postage stamps said 20 billion marks. There are a ton of famous anecdotes about the worthlessness of the Weimar mark, such as being better suited for [[https://www.facebook.com/HistoricPhotographs/photos/a.220359594804465/1960379187469155/?type=3 firewood]] or [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-00104%2C_Inflation%2C_Tapezieren_mit_Geldscheinen.jpg wallpaper]], or the story of someone who forgets a wheelbarrow full of money and comes back to find the wheelbarrow stolen but the money left alone.

-->-- ''Anime/FullmetalAlchemistTheConquerorOfShamballa''[[note]] Regarding the German Mark - see ''Real Life - Europe'' below.[[/note]]

* Parodied in ''Creator/DaveBarry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need'', according to which the exchange rate for Italian currency is "1,000,000,000,000,000 lire = Nothing."

* In ''Videogame/GoingUnder'', the Styxcoin dungeon's unique mechanic involves the titular Styxcoin, a nigh-worthless cryptocurrency that is the only form of money dropped in that dungeon and can be exchanged for roughly 0.00025% of the normal in-game currency.

* Parodied in Season 0 of ''WebVideo/YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries'', where Ushio charges Yugi 20,000 yen for beating up Joey and Tristan. A panicked Yugi then remarks "That's like a whole dollar!" [[note]]For those curious, it's really closer to 146 dollars, which is still a lot of money to fork over.[[/note]]

* UsefulNotes/{{Zimbabwe}} is the by-word for [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_Zimbabwe hyperinflation]], giving us the page image at the top. The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Zimbabwe_$100_trillion_2009_Obverse.jpg 100 trillion-dollar bill]] from 2009 set a record for the most zeroes ever put on a banknote with 14 — and this was after two revaluations that cut 13 more zeroes. Inflation rates were in the millions of percent (sometimes billions), and it became more appropriate to speak of the currency's "half-life" (''i.e.'' how long it takes for it to lose half its value) — a stable currency might last 35 years, but the Zimbabwe dollar's half-life at its worst was just 24 hours. People were withdrawing money so much that [=ATMs=] started malfunctioning [[ReadingsAreOffTheScale just from an inability to handle the ridiculous numbers]]. 2009 was the last straw, when the Zimbabwe government just gave up and made the U.S. dollar (alongside other reserve currencies such as the South African rand, Chinese yuan, Pound sterling and Japanese yen) the official currency.

* The UsefulNotes/{{Iran}}ian rial lost 80% of its value between January and October 2012, and during this period it saw several days of double-digit losses. It's worth around 42,000 per U.S. dollar, and the hyperinflation has led to a few protests. The ''toman'' reckoning of chopping off a zero or two is common.

* The Middle East is also home to a few {{subversion}}s, featuring the top four ''strongest'' currencies in the world -- the UsefulNotes/{{Jordan}}ian dinar, the UsefulNotes/{{Bahrain}}i dinar, the UsefulNotes/{{Kuwait}}i dinar, and the UsefulNotes/{{Oman}}i rial. Again, British tourists convinced that their own currency is the world's strongest tend to get burned in these countries -- especially in Kuwait, where one dinar is worth about USD 3.30.

* A first-season episode of ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooWhereAreYou'' saw Scooby as a potential heir to a share in a considerable fortune--a million American dollars. [[spoiler:Turns out, while Colonel Sanders (no! not ''that'' [[UsefulNotes/KentuckyFriedChicken Colonel Sanders]]!) had the million-dollar fortune... the dollars were in [[WorthlessTreasureTwist worthless Confederate paper money]]. [[FridgeLogic No attempt is made to explain why the mansion isn't noted as part of the estate since it'd at least be worth something]]. Or the fact that Confederate money is highly valued by collectors.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'', Eddy gets a (comically) huge envelope of money from a penpal in Korea and immediately tries to buy jawbreakers. Right before he gets tossed out of the store, Edd remarks:
--> '''Edd''': This is foreign currency, Eddy! Virtually worthless in its present state!
** Part of the joke is that Eddy, [[HarmlessVillain being Eddy]], doesn't bother exchanging the Korean currency for American dollars. [[FridgeBrilliance But if you crunch some numbers]] you quickly find it wouldn't have helped: you need about a thousand Korean won to equal a US dollar.
* In ''WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitchTheSeries'', Gantu realized he was getting paid with worthless bills with his employer's face on them, as they were to be worth something after he took over the universe (shades of [[Film/StreetFighter M.Bison]], perhaps?).

* The UsefulNotes/WeimarRepublic's Deutsche mark was one of the best known examples. The common story is that Weimar Germany, saddled with huge debts and reparations from UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, ran the presses until the whole debt was paid, but the famous 1923 hyperinflation was more acutely caused by the Ruhr Crisis, when the country ''missed'' a reparations payment, and the French and Belgians teamed up to occupy the Ruhr Valley, which was Germany's industrial heartland and crippled the country's economy. At its worst, one U.S. dollar was worth 420 ''quadrillion'' marks (that's a 42 and ''16'' zeroes), the country at one point printed a 100 quadrillion mark banknote, and even postage stamps said 20 billion marks. There are a ton of famous anecdotes about the worthlessness of the Weimar mark, such as being better suited for [[https://www.igolder.com/glossary/hyperinflation/Fiat-Money-Is-Nearly-Worthless.jpg firewood]] or [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-00104%2C_Inflation%2C_Tapezieren_mit_Geldscheinen.jpg wallpaper]], or the story of someone who forgets a wheelbarrow full of money and comes back to find the wheelbarrow stolen but the money left alone.

* The UsefulNotes/{{Mexic|o}}an peso occasionally gets this treatment, partly from some historical inflationary episodes, but mostly from its status as an AcceptableTarget for Americans. The worst was between 1982 and 1994, when the peso was essentially a "petrocurrency", and when the price of oil fell, the peso collapsed and the entire economy went with it. In 1993, the "new peso" was issued at an exchange rate of 1,000:1; the "new" was dropped in 1996. The current exchange rate is around 20 pesos to U.S. dollar, but Americans still get confused sometimes, because both the peso and dollar use the "$" symbol,[[note]]This is based on both currencies' historic link to the Spanish "dollar" or "piece of eight" silver coin[[/note]] and you're never ''quite'' sure which one they want.

* The UsefulNotes/{{Vietnam}}ese đồng[[note]]pronounced roughly "dough-ng", but if you don't already speak Vietnamese [[NoPronunciationGuide it's basically hopeless]][[/note]] is worth somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 to the U.S. dollar. It's gotten worse over time, even though the country's economy has been supposedly "ready to take off" for the last decade; when ''Series/TopGearUK'' did their Vietnam special in 2008 (and Jeremy bragged about his shoebox full of cash before realizing it would only buy him a motorcycle), it was closer to 15,000 to the dollar.

* In an OlderThanRadio moment Creator/MarkTwain, in ''The Innocents Abroad'', was on a cruise that stopped at the Azores, where many of the passengers went ashore to a restaurant. Clearly not having been adequately briefed on the concept of exchange rates, when the bill was presented for "2,500 reis" for cigars, and "13,200 reis" for wine, and so on, the passenger who had offered to pay paled in horror, gave the proprietor of the place $150 in gold, and informed him that he will pay no more. The proprietor had to go and get someone else to translate the amounts of local currency to dollars before the situation stabilized -- at a price amounted to about $21.

* The UsefulNotes/{{South Korea}}n won is another stable currency with a ridiculous exchange rate of about 1,000 won per U.S. dollar. Unfortunately, the largest banknote available to the general public is 50,000 won, [[PayingInCoins which is only around $40-$50]]. South Korea is a very industrialized and developed economy, so it doesn't rely ''too'' much on cash, but you might still find yourself in a situation where you need to pay with a proverbial BriefcaseFullOfMoney. ([[UsefulNotes/YanksWithTanks U.S. military in Korea]] particularly have to deal with this, as Korean landlords prefer soldiers to pay the year's rent up front in cash.)

* UsefulNotes/{{Venezuela}} is a by-word for hyperinflation, especially among [[RedScare Communist-hating Americans]] who see it as a textbook example of what happens when you go [[YouKeepUsingThatWord Communist]] (or more accurately, when [[UsefulNotes/{{Socialism}} self-proclaimed Socialists]] try to regulate a market through wishful thinking, combined with [[CripplingOverspecialization an economy based almost entirely on oil exports]], while failing to invest in maintaining oil production facilities). It started with president UsefulNotes/HugoChavez and continued under his successor Nicolás Maduro — neither saw a need to let the global market decide their currency's value, and the bolivar was worth whatever they said it was worth. They didn't take the black market into account — ignoring the market won't make it go away, it just pushes it off the books. By 2016, inflation was around 700% — by July 2018, Maduro's opposition was claiming it was over ''80,000%'' per year, and the black market exchange rate was six million new bolivars (or six ''billion'' pre-2008 bolivars) per U.S. dollar. A further redenomination took place in 2018, with one bolivar soberano (sovereign bolivar) equaling 100,000 bolivares fuertes. The country's famously antagonistic relationship with the U.S. has led it to abandon any outside help, and the extreme corruption, currency controls, and disparity between official and unofficial exchange rates has led to government and police getting ''very'' rich at the expense of people who can't afford basic necessities. Maduro tried to solve this problem by proposing the "petro", essentially a petroleum-backed currency pegged at 60 U.S. dollars per "petro", then nominally pegging the sovereign bolivar at the rate of 1 petro to 3600 sovereign bolivars. This didn't work. In August 2021, six zeroes were dropped off.

* UsefulNotes/{{Venezuela}} is a by-word for hyperinflation, especially among [[RedScare Communist-hating Americans]] who see it as a textbook example of what happens when you go [[YouKeepUsingThatWord Communist]] (or more accurately, when [[UsefulNotes/{{Socialism}} self-proclaimed Socialists]] try to regulate a market through wishful thinking, combined with [[CripplingOverspecialization an economy based almost entirely on oil exports]], while failing to invest in maintaining oil production facilities). It started with president UsefulNotes/HugoChavez and continued under his successor Nicolás Maduro — neither saw a need to let the global market decide their currency's value, and the bolivar was worth whatever they said it was worth. They didn't take the black market into account — ignoring the market won't make it go away, it just pushes it off the books. By 2016, inflation was around 700% — by July 2018, Maduro's opposition was claiming it was over ''80,000%'' per year, and the black market exchange rate was six million new bolivars (or six ''billion'' pre-2008 bolivars) per U.S. dollar. A further redenomination took place in 2018, with one bolivar soberano (sovereign bolivar) equaling 100,000 bolivares fuertes. The country's famously antagonistic relationship with the U.S. has led it to abandon any outside help, and the extreme corruption, currency controls, and disparity between official and unofficial exchange rates has led to government and police getting ''very'' rich at the expense of people who can't afford basic necessities. Maduro tried to solve this problem by proposing the "petro", essentially a petroleum-backed currency pegged at 60 U.S. dollars per "petro", then nominally pegging the sovereign bolivar at the rate of 1 petro to 3600 sovereign bolivars. This didn't work. On August 2021 six zero were dropped off.

* The post-war UsefulNotes/{{Hungar|y}}ian pengő experienced the single worst hyperinflation in ''history''. The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HUP_100MB_1946_obverse.jpg largest banknote]] was worth 100 ''quintillion'' pengő (that's a 1 followed by ''20'' zeroes), which is the single highest denomination banknote ever issued[[note]]It's denominated as "100 million B-pengő", or 100 million-billion pengő, so it doesn't have the most zeroes actually ''printed'' on a banknote — that honour goes to the 100 trillion Zimbabwe dollar note[[/note]] — and even that was effectively worthless. The currency's "half-life" was as low as fifteen hours at its worst. The pengő was eventually replaced by the forint in August 1946 at a rate of 400 ''octillion'' pengő to the forint, and to give you an idea of just ''how'' ridiculous this number is: if you could buy ''one atom'' of hydrogen for one pengő -- just one atom -- you [[HiroshimaAsAUnitOfMeasure could fill ]] UsefulNotes/TheHindenburg for twenty-five forints. (And, at 2010 exchange rates, that would run you a little over 12¢ US, less than a tenth of a euro.) Following the end of the hyperinflation, the next currency-related problem Hungary had to deal with was a shortage of currency-quality paper.

* ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}} IV '' has inflation as a feature.

* In ''[[VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga]]'', the exchange rate between Mushroom Kingdom coins and Beanbean Kingdom coins is ''absolutely insane''. In the beginning of the game, however many Mushroom coins you have -- usually at least a hundred -- [[SchrodingersGun turns out to be worth exactly ten Beanbean coins]]. By the end, however, the Mushroom currency has apparently devalued off-screen ''dramatically'', to the point where 99,999,999,999,999 Mushroom coins is equal to 99 Beanbean coins.

* In an early mission in ''VideoGame/JustCause2'', while Rico is buying some information from an informant, Panau is implied to have this kind of currency.
-->'''Informant:''' A pleasure doing business with you.\\
'''Rico:''' [[DeadpanSnarker Considering the value of the Panauan buck, shooting you would have been more expensive.]]

** This also creates an unintentionally ridiculous situation thanks to WritersCannotDoMath. Earlier in the episode a debt of 5000 credits was staed to be an insane amount that a working class family could never pay back, but by that conversion it's only £100.

** The Articles of Confederation basically left printing money to the individual states; the Continental Congress issued its own currency too. Nobody, however, printed anything ''worth'' anything, except perhaps to lend the phrase "not worth a Continental". Most Americans, if they needed an actual currency, would use the existing Spanish ''real'' coins that were pervasive in the Americas at the time. UsefulNotes/GeorgeWashington complained once that one needed a wagon of money to buy a wagon of hay. This is why the modern Constitution specifically prohibits the states from issuing paper money.

* Axis-occupied UsefulNotes/{{Greece}} witnessed one of the worst hyperinflations in history — in October 1944, it hit a monthly rate of 13.8%.

** A justified example can be found in ''Literature/TheColourOfMagic''. Twoflower comes from a land where gold is about as valuable as lead, and the gold coins he's using as money are supposed to be fiat currency (later books revealed it's backed by silver). As a result what he thinks is enough travel money for a few weeks visiting Ankh-Morpork has enough value locally to purchase half the city outright. He never actually figures this out, and continues to tip people more than the value of a house.

* After some ''[[ArtisticLicenseEconomics really stupid]]'' decisions by the managers of ''Website/GaiaOnline'', namely the creation of an insane quantity of [[MoneySpider gold generators]], the amount of gold accrued without any adequate GoldSink, making the prices soar (see [[http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/hyperinflation-in-gaia-online here]]).

* In one arc of ''ComicBook/TheTick'', Tick and Arthur go adventuring an a fictional African nation called Van Buria (founded by US President Martin Van Buren) and come back with a briefcase full of local currency. It turns out to be worth $8 US.