What do you think of this fact?
The bill shows a 1 followed by 14 zeros. Holding it still doesn’t make you rich. Zimbabwe’s 100 trillion dollar note is the most famous souvenir of an economic crisis.
Inflation out of control
From 2007 on, the Zimbabwe dollar lost value at breakneck speed. The central bank printed more and more money, and prices rose faster and faster. According to economist Steve Hanke of the Cato Institute, inflation hit about 79.6 billion percent per month in mid-November 2008. At that point, prices were roughly doubling every day.
Someone who went shopping in the morning paid noticeably less than someone who walked into the same store in the evening. Saving cash made no sense at all anymore.
The trillion series
The central bank responded with bigger and bigger bills. In January 2009, it announced new notes worth 10, 20, 50 and finally 100 trillion dollars, released, in its own words, for the “convenience of the public”. The Washington Examiner reported an inflation rate of 231 million percent at the time.
They were the last banknotes of that currency. By April 2009, Zimbabwe had switched to a system using foreign currencies, mainly the US dollar and the South African rand. The 100 trillion note was withdrawn.
Bonus fact: The Zimbabwe dollar wasn’t formally declared invalid until 2015. By then, nobody had used it in everyday life for years.
Today the bill is a popular collector’s item. Dealers sell it to people who want to hold a trillion in their hands, or a hundred of them.
The bill with the most zeros ended up achieving just one thing: it’s worth more today as a curiosity than it ever was as money.