After taking a look at the world’s cheapest currencies, I found that the story behind them is even more complicated than the exchange rates themselves. Names like the Lebanese pound, the Iranian rial, and the Vietnamese dong may sound unfamiliar, but the extent to which they’ve been devaluing is truly shocking. The Lebanese pound’s exchange rate to the USD is as high as 89,751—this is not a numbers game, but a direct reflection of a country’s economic collapse.

Looking at the common thread among these currencies that are the cheapest in the world, it basically points to one problem: a single economic structure combined with high inflation. Whether it’s Laos and Myanmar, which depend on agricultural exports, or Iran, whose economy is constrained by economic sanctions, their currency devaluations are not accidental. Even Indonesia’s rupiah, from the world’s fourth most populous country, can’t escape this fate either, due to overreliance on commodity exports. Behind currencies like the Uzbek som, the Guinean franc, and the Paraguayan guarani are stories of lagging development and political instability.

What’s interesting is that the phenomenon of the cheapest currencies in the world actually reflects global economic inequality. While the Vietnamese dong is also cheap, Vietnam’s economy is growing, so currency devaluation becomes a competitive advantage. By contrast, currencies like the Malagasy ariary and the Burundian franc seem even more tragic, because the underlying economies have little growth momentum.

Overall, the common features of these cheapest currencies in the world are: high inflation, low growth, insufficient foreign-exchange reserves, and low economic diversification. If a country wants its currency to appreciate, simply relying on central bank intervention isn’t enough—it also needs to address structural problems. Just look at these cases: in the end, the strength or weakness of a currency is determined by economic fundamentals.