I received a photo yesterday from a friend who was in Lebanon. He was holding a bundle of banknotes that looked like Monopoly money—more than 50,000 Lebanese pounds, equivalent to about R$ 3,00. That made me think: while we complain here about the dollar at R$ 5,44, there are countries where the currency is so devalued that people literally carry bags of money to buy basic things.

Have you ever stopped to think about what really makes a currency the most devalued in the world? It’s not coincidence. It’s always an explosive combination: runaway inflation (imagine prices doubling every month), chronic political instability, economic sanctions that isolate the country, international reserves at rock bottom, and capital flight. When even the citizens themselves would rather keep dollars under the mattress than trust the local currency, you know the situation is serious.

The Brazilian real closed 2024 as the worst currency among the major ones (a devaluation of 21,52%), but that’s small compared with what happens elsewhere. Let me tell you about a few extreme cases I found while researching.

The Lebanese pound is the absolute champion. Officially, it should be 1.507,5 pounds per dollar, but in real life on the streets you need more than 90,000. Banks limit withdrawals, stores only accept dollars, and Uber drivers in Beirut demand payment in foreign currency. It’s like a collapse in slow motion.

The Iranian rial is another case of despair. American sanctions turned it into colorful paper. With R$ 100, you become a “millionaire” in rials. But what’s most interesting? Young Iranians discovered that Bitcoin and Ethereum are more reliable than their own national currency. Cryptocurrencies have become the real solution for anyone who wants to preserve capital.

Then there’s the Vietnamese dong, which is funny because you withdraw 1 million dongs from the ATM and you get a bundle worthy of a heist series. Great for tourists, but for Vietnamese people it means expensive imports and limited international purchasing power. Vietnam’s economy is growing, but the currency remains historically weak because of monetary policy decisions.

Laotian kip, Indonesian rupiah, Uzbek som, Guinean franc—this list goes on. Each one has its own story of instability. Some countries have huge natural resources (like Guinea with gold and bauxite), yet the currency stays weak due to corruption and political crises. Others are economically small and depend too much on imports.

And at the very bottom is the Burundian franc—the kind of weakness where people literally carry bags of money for larger purchases. Chronic political instability shows up directly in the currency.

What do all these cases teach you? That a devalued currency is always a symptom of a weakened economy. A fragile economy = massive risk. But it also creates opportunities: tourism gets cheaper (Bali, Paraguay, and Vietnamese cities have turned into paradises for anyone arriving with reais or dollars), and you learn in practice how inflation, corruption, and instability work.

Most importantly: understanding these dynamics helps you not fall into the trap of thinking that a cheap currency is an investment opportunity. In most cases, it’s a sign that something is seriously wrong. Watching currencies collapse is a live lesson in macroeconomics.

For anyone who truly wants to protect their money, the lesson is clear: assets that cross borders and aren’t affected by local inflation are the way to go. Whether it’s cryptocurrency or other global instruments. The world is increasingly split between stable economies and those that are gradually collapsing over time.