Bitcoin Forum

175 Quadrillion Zimbabwean Dollars Now Equals $5 (http://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/175-quadrillion-zimbabwean-dollars-now-equals-5-n374171)

Adopting the USD is also a bad idea for Zimbabwe though.  They will need to borrow in a currency that they don't control and isn't effected by their own economy.
They should have gold backed, or partially gold backed a new currency, or gone all in and adopted a cryptocurrency. 

I don't think bitcoin would be right for them, for the same reasons as the USD is a bad idea, but an internal Zimcoin could have worked, or been tried at least.

No. They need to adapt USD or some other major foreign currency. It is the only way because Zimbabwe lost its credibility. Imagine they try to make some changes like denomination or introduce new currency.
How long it will take until it new currency will be again crazy dirt cheap?

Zimbabwe might not be able to limit inflation, by adopting fiat currencies such as the United States Dollar and the South African Rand. These currencies are also not protected from inflation. If the Zimbabwean government really want to curb the price inflation in that country, it should legalize some currency which is immune to inflation, such as the Bitcoin.

by just reading the first few lines of your post i knew you would bring up bitcoin. you do realize that most of the people there don't have access to internet right? let alone a smartphone.

Zimbabwe should first get rid of their biggest problem >> Robert Mugabe <<
When that is done, they should replace the whole government that was placed their by him.
Then they can start to rebuild their country and their currency. I have visited them on two occasions and they have huge potential for tourism and economic growth. As long as Mugabe and his friends are ruling there, things will be bad for that country. Bitcoin will make very little difference, the people already use M-pesa.

The US dollar has been the world's primary reserve currency for most of the past century. It also has a perception of being a safe-haven currency and constitutes the majority of foreign exchange reserves. Compared to many other currencies in the past, the inflation of the US dollar has typically kept to low levels and thus it's seen as being a safe and reliable store of value. Bitcoin still has a reputation for being extremely volatile while the US dollar is usually seen as being the complete opposite. Bitcoin might be deflationary in the long run but it's probably far too early for this to have any meaningful effect.

Anyway, I doubt their government will adopt Bitcoin as their main currency. Governments like to have control over their countries' currencies and adjust/manipulate their supplies to suit their needs. If Bitcoin ever becomes the main currency in any country, then it will probably be the result of an organic movement from the bottom-up rather than from the top-down.


There aren't many Zimbabweans with personal PCs, but most do have mobile phones (75%). Internet penetration currently stands at roughly 20% while only 10% have personal PCs. Smartphones are still not as prevalent as many neighboring countries but their share is certainly increasing.


He's 91. I'm amazed to see how he's still so active despite being so old. I doubt he has many more years left though.

I would really want to get my hands on one of those notes.

I got scammed then. I bought a 100 trillion Zimbabwe dollar note for 5$ on eBay in hopes they would discover alien spacecraft or strike oil lol.

A few countries have successfully introduced a new currency after their old one got destroyed by hyperinflation. For example, Hungary was able to switch over to the forint in 1946 after the collapse of their infamous pengo. The value of the forint remained relatively stable until the 1980's.


You can easily buy them from online auction sites such as eBay. Individual notes are usually sold for a few dollars each. The highest denomination notes are the 100 trillion dollar notes which tend to go for a little bit more:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/Zimbabwe-/162228/i.html

Inflation is ok, but a hyper inflation?
The country has become shit in economy terms. So USD can help a bit yes, since it's not hyper inflated.

Thanks for the info by the way where would i collect that money as online?

It's a physical note that has the letters "100 trillion dollars" printed on it. You pay the seller (usually via PayPal) and they'll ship it to your address.

Wow the 100 trill note has went up a lot! I seriously bought mine back in 2010 or so for just under 5$ lol.

With the current state of affairs in Zimbabwe, I won't be surprised if selling those trillion dollar and billion dollar banknotes has become the primary forex earner for Zimbabwe. Even by the African standards, Zimbabwe is a shit hole, with 30% of the population living outside as refugees (mostly in Botswana and South Africa), and 25% of all the adults being HIV positive.

I wonder why up to this point, people still failed to see the simple fact that fiat currency is totally unreliable and opened to manipulation. Well that is just one example, and what you don't see are those that did something in the background that goes totally unnoticed. The difference here is generally how bad or how worse it gets.

I am a Zimbabwean and i use Bitcoin, NO bitcoin would not be right for us. Crypto currency is just not suitable for our economy in it's current state.

Quick pointer, we don't just use the USD.

YEN, YUAN, CND, USD, GBP, ZAR, EUR, PULA are all accepted in financial transactions. USD is just more popular among individuals and small businesses.

Let we explain,

We have a major problem of corruption and misappropriation of funds, under our local currency regime, the government could print money willy-nilly and "pay" for everything, but now with the use of foreign currency with which accountability is much higher (no printing to cover the mess you made), we have managed to stabilize our economy which lies on the brink of death. Thus far i can say that our economy has been running in "stand-by mode" since early 2009. "

We have a geo-political problem that emanated from the Land Reform program, the US and allies slammed our economy with sanctions (don't believe the shit about "targeted sanctions") which crippled our economy because as a developing country we were highly dependent on aid from our developed friends. I won't go into the politics of the it, but the sanctions are real and affect us all, even i had a transaction to my bank cancelled yesterday (i'm 21 years old never worked for government nor do any of my close relatives ). A Lithuanian bank went as far as telling me that they did not trust my visa transactions because Zimbabwe is too "remote" to be trusted. if you find it hard to part with the western narrative ..... just think Iran, think Russia, look what the sanctions imposed on them, oil producing countries have done, then consider  that we are mostly an agrarian society.  

We have internal political problems as well and all of these put together result in our being unable to sustain a local currency, and not trusting our government to even try. We prefer the foreign currencies because even though our economy is practically hand to mouth, it is a stable (for now) hand to mouth.

I resent this notion...ask yourself, if he is such a bad leader, how did he 1) get re-elected 2) get elected to the SADC chairmanship and 3) Get the African Union chairmanship?

I agree some people in government must go, but do not attempt to place all blame on him. We have a very delicate problem with regards to our interaction with the western world and an even worse internal issue about succession, his sudden removal would leave a vacuum, which unfortunately the runner ups aren't at all ideal. You see hi as a dictator, we see him as a father, we beyond his year still trying his best for his children and teaching us to his last breath.

Trust me , i know his flaws all too well, we all know them , but we trust hi and we trust his judgement. there have been issues of political violence, i'm sure you all know about that part, but i really hate that noone ever talks about how a lot of the perpetrators were hunted down and brought to justice. We are not perfect, but maybe you should try getting both narratives and extracting some truth. 

They should just use gold and silver... you can flash very small amounts onto bills........ 

Why you would use the USD ... morons.  Well I guess it makes sense as their leaders are morons.

Your numbers are off and misleading, 85% have an econet line which means 85% have access to the internet. of those 85%, maybe 50% now possess a phone that can be considered "smart". Personal PC ownership is indeed low, but most have access to local internet cafes. There is a local variant of M-pesa offered by the largest network provider, it's called Eco-cash  and it enjoys widespread use, just having a mobile subscription with them and a registration is enough to send and receive money. As a BTC user and a Zimbabwean, Eco-cash is simpler to use that BTc and far more convenient.

Yeah, the old man is tiring, but the situation demands he make some last ditch efforts to at least leave us on the right track. He knows the mistakes he made and from a local perspective we can see he is  trying to fix what he can. Unfortunately there is a power struggle inside that makes things harder, then there is the West vs China issue. The west crippled our economy, China gave a helping (not by much) hand, and that has resulted in our people having a better sentiment towards the Chinese.

Nothing in politics is ever as it seems, i don't know that whole picture, noone except the guys at the top does.

Most ppl there don't have facility to access bitcoin wallet and know nothing about bitcoin! Adopting reliable foreign currency seems a good option! Although the gov loses the control of the currency to balance their money marke, but it is better they have no chance to abuse their rights of printing mounting of cash for their own interests!

The USD is easily traded , no need to haggle over actual value.


+1

Gold backing a whole currency? I doubt thats possible for zimbabwe.

An actual cryptocurrency there would be really interesting. I wonder how miners would react, Zimbabwe could become rich since it would be a states currency. Thats interesting at least.

Just use the metal.. you can easily make 1 cent bills via flashing gold or silver...

No one can print 100 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 OZ of silver.

THE USD HOWEVER...   You think the cops have armoured vehicals, assualt rilfes and have had their numbers explode because things are getting better for the merica ecom... oooh the writing is on the wall boys.

When I was in Vietnam all I used was USD. Even ATMs dispensed USD (which I don't think is legal). It's a good tactic for most out there because conveniently everything you buy is rounded up to the nearest dollar. Can of coke? 1 Dollar. Crappy souvenirs? One dollar. Everything was priced in whole dollars. On the off-chance you  do get change - they give it to you in Vietnam Dong, which of course is far too hard to work out the exchange rate so you just take it. Same for Cambodia too.

Zimbabwe doesn't produce any gold or silver, although they have a few diamond mines. And since they don't have the sort of funds to import bullion, using gold and silver as a currency is not practical. And regarding the leadership, Robert Mugabe was democratically elected, and he still commands a good deal of support among the general population.

They have hyperinflation . so bad that they have to constantly redesign and reprint bills to meet the current needs. At one point they just said 'fuck it' and reprinted their bills with 8 fewer zeros so that they would look less ridiculous.

Democracy is a joke in 2015.

Interesting. It indeed would've been great if they adopted a crypto-currency.
That way crypto currency gets the boost it needs and a difficult time for Zimbawe becomes an opportunity
to really come out with something new and, well, awesome.
Alas! Politics is something that can not be ignored in such matters.

Actually we do produce gold and silver, a lot of it. But it falls into the wrong hands and frankly, we don't have the proper systems and structures to monitor and control our resources. As a nation, we could learn a lot from western countries in the areas of management and resource control, but the bad politics on either end are hindering progress and cooperation.

Yes R.G was democratically elected, and commands maybe 65% approval.

This is really confusing. A 91-year old dictator enjoying close to 65% approval, despite wrecking the economy? It will be interesting to know the reasons why he still enjoys so much support from his citizens. Did he gave free land to the people (from the farmland which he confiscated from the white commercial farmers) ?

crazy Toilet papers must be more expensive. I bet the lower denominations aren't even worth the ink used to print them.

Hyperinflation is a bitch. Serves the greedy bastards right.

Well, glad you asked,  i'll try to be short and keep my opinions out of it.

Initially, when we got independence , the brits agreed to help us buy the land from the white minority. There was a change in government there and they abandoned the effort. On the local front , war veterans (who still commanded a lot of respect and military power) were becoming more insistent on getting resources , land and government benefits. As if that is already not a powder keg we participated in the DRC war at great expense.

The war vets started taking land violently before R.G could resolve the issues and so to avoid local unrest and maintain power, a hurried land reform programme was carried out. What R G and his party (ZANU PF) managed to do, is deliver on the promises that most african liberation struggles failed, he got the people land. Our entire war was based on this premise...land for the people. So this gave him not only local legitimacy, but regional as well.

Remember him speaking out against the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq? We were watching our leader speak in defense of smaller nations against the aggression of larger more powerful ones, he inspired the currently and next generation of African leaders (hence they elected him to be AU Chairman). He also spoke out about foreign countries forming opinions without real information and influencing others to follow their lead regardless of the truth. Western leaders and western values are different, and trying to impose those on us resulted in the general population becoming distrustful of them. R.G on the other hand is more worried about impressing his people, than the rest of the world.

As the economy slipped deeper into the abyss , and the pressure of western sanctions increased, we all witnessed the effects. He did not wreck the economy. Yes he could have handled things differently, and maybe we could have a different situation, but we do not blame him for the economy, we blame the west's sanctions. Even now, we feel their grip every time we try to work with the international community.

If the west had used and pursued diplomatic solutions only without the threats of military intervention and/or the sanctions, i doubt R G would still be in power. I guess what they did not anticipate was that rather than forcing regime change, their actions and attitude towards us made us support our leaders more....much like they did in Cuba, Iran and now Russia.

And please don't refer to it as free land, it's OUR land. And many of the white farmers who applied for land actually got some, i myself (once i get a job) want to apply for some. Many of my white friends' parents have farms and enjoy a peaceful life.

It's a conciliatory move, more about the face of the action than economic relevance. It allows us to completely transition the last vestiges of ZWD to using foreign currency.


To whom do you refer as greed bastards?

This.  In 5-10 years they will force everyone to sell their USD for some new POS Zimbabwe currency.

Yes, that is a way of looking at it. Though they likely won't be trying that anytime soon, and even when they do there would be low confidence and people would go back to home banking and the resistance against the move would be massive. Just check out last week's headline, they tried to forcibly remove vendors and were forced to back down after growing unrest threatened to blow out into full riots.

People have gotten used to the current status quo and are still very raw from what happened, hell even 10 years may not be enough for people to forget, come to think of it, the hardest hit by the past debacle will be the ones holding positions of considerable power in the country and will likely resist such a move unless we have successfully rebooted the economy and we have systems that will ensure it does not repeat itself.

It's cool to hear your perspective. One of my oldest friends is a Zimbabwean, boy does he have some stories to tell about his life growing up there.

His father was a very powerful man when he was young, he owned multiple gold and diamond mines and was close to RG and his cronies. He had servants and security guards, and a driving license when he was 11 years old. He witnessed their chef murder one of their security guards in front of the whole family when they were eating dinner, he stormed in and slit his throat in front of everyone! And he was executed the next day! He's seen one of his cousins get eaten by a crocodile! Needless to say his mother exiled him to the UK for reasons he would never, ever tell me. All I know is that he hated his father. Hell, he was actually left a diamond mine in his fathers will. He was his only son you see and wanted him to take care of his business. I will never know why he refused so much to accept it... But I have begun to understand why he wouldn't the more I learn about the country and its government. It ended up in the hands of RG, man how I tried to get him to do something about it before the government took it. "Just sell it!" I used to say.

His story has always fascinated me.

So far away from my upbringing and western lifestyle!

OK summary: RM was democratically elected, then turned into a dictator.

Thousands of white, productive farmers were robbed and violently kicked out and are now productive in Sambia.

The land was handed over to corrupt cronies of the RM government, and the country and its industry is now 100% in black hands. Sort of like Greece but with Africans.

Result: highest inflation since the big bang.

I think this speaks for itself and this time, white people cannot be blamed, because they were not involved.  ;D

May be they should have reached a compromise on distributing the land. For example, the white farmers should give up 50% of their land to the state, and they get to own the remaining 50%. At that point of time, there were some 6,000 commercial farmers in Zimbabwe. Owning 50% of the farmland means, an average white farmer is left with 1,250 hectares (3,100 acres) of farmland. And the British government should have given compensation to the farmers to the land they give up, as they were the ones who confiscated that land earlier.

You seem to be a very level headed person, so I am not going to go down on your opinions with total disregard for your current situation.
It cannot be easy to live under a dictator and a failing economy, with poverty everywhere.

BUT I have to say this..

Those farmers who has build their lives on that land, was chased away like dogs. For many years they have provided food security for many Zimbabweans. {Yes, it was not their LAND and they could have come to some sort of compromise... Let say.. Give 50% land back to the people and continue farming on the other 50% on a lease agreement for say 20 or 50 years, to provide for some sort of income, to exit Zimbabwe on a later stage}

This did not happen... The War veterans went to those farms ... removed the farmers with violent methods, {killing dogs, cattle and burning down houses}

The western world initiated sanctions, because the Zimbabwean people were being tortured and killed, if they opposed the current regime. They also gave opportunity for a democratic vote, but that was rigged to further the interest of Mugabe and his friends.

Sanctions were the only non-violent option to try to resolve the matter.

Then the supposed hero's came to the rescue in the form of the Chinese {As you have mentioned} Do you really think they are there to help or are you setting yourself up to follow the same route?

They will come in, take what they want and when you get sick of them, you will chase them away...like you did with the western countries.

The world is currently being divided and we are moving towards a shit storm... Choose your side, it's not going to be a fun ride.     

I have to disagree with your observations here. According to most of the neutral international observers, the presidential / parliamentary elections in Zimbabwe were free and fair. It is clear that Robert Mugabe enjoys around 60-70% of the support. The Western nations imposed sanctions, as the election results were against their interests.

I'm tempted to exchange a few dollars just so I can say I have tens of quadrillions of something :D

This is not good for a country, hope they rebound back to normal, best wishes to Zimbawe on their road to recovery. Other countries should take lesson and adopt something which is not centralized as Bitcoin if they have to save themselves from situations which could happen to anyone and at anytime.

I want to imagine a couple of bills. With them, I immediately become a millionaire.
It turns out that the paper is more expensive bills.

where do they go from here? Instead of just getting higher and higher numbers, they must reset to a larger denomination ?

highly unlikely, the people are tired and are happy with the current system of multi-currency. Attempts to change that will result in heavy resistance.

Please don't confuse me for a sympathizer, i have many a bone to pick with the government and there are things i will never forget nor forgive. There was an avoidable series of events that should never have been allowed to happen, and i see some fat bastards blowing ill begotten wealth. I, like many like minded Zimbabweans across the racial divide would like to see more engagement with the international community and a return to normalized relations, we'd also like to throw a couple of people behind bars.

But the first step is removing the veil of biased media reporting, both here and abroad. We are people and want to engage people, not through tailored speeches , slanted reporting or political posturing , but through honest conversation, an exchange of ideas and sharing perspectives.

$5 seems insignificant in USD.  but 0.02164503 BTC seems kinda excessive.  seeming that this stuff will go up to $10000000 per BTC in the next 10 years

Wow the zimbabweans are really quadrillionaires, i almost envy them. Maybe not....

Just switch to BTC & precious metals already  :D

The 100 billion and 100 trillion Zimbabwean Dollar notes are selling like hotcakes in online auction sites such as Ebay and Craiglist. A number of Zimbabweans have made good earnings, by selling these notes to banknote collectors around the world. (I myself own a dozen of them, purchased from Ebay for $25).

Hahaha oh boy you made my day, i laughted alot at that one.

Seems like the USD will become a collection note too? I remember some US politician saying that they need to make a 1 trillion dollar worth coin.

I wonder if that will happen?

buy some millions dogecoin then...
:D

Fabulous!
I can now be a quadrillionaire :D

Now, my question is: Do they even have that much money printed?

It will be harder to take our money to eat in restaurant. You need bring a pack of money and can be complicated to count it when you pay. The super inflation make the money price will be drop extremely. Poor zimbabwe people

wow this is insane .

very funny ZIMBABWE CURRENCY FORTRESS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9UXictk5Lg

That is a stupid amount of money to buy 5 2L bottles of Wholesale Brand Soda for $1 Each
It does make me laugh a bit that a single Dogecoin is worth 1.9 Zimbawae Dollars
http://coinmill.com/XDG_ZWD.html#XDG=1

I think Zimbabwae should consider adopting crypto instead of printing that much money but I guess paying fees to send US dollars back to the United States is a lot better than that joke of a currency, on the bright side at least they can sell the scraps of paper for a dime and make a tremendous profit as souvenirs.

USA, EUR, and the rest of fiats... this is the end result taken to the extreme. You don't realize you are on the hyperinflation train until it's already several stops down the line and the doors don't open anymore.

hyperinflation = yet another reason to adopt bitcoin for national government currency

That is not true. There are countries in Africa, which are even poorer when compared to Zimbabwe, Mali for example. Zimbabwe still receive sizable remittances from migrants working in South Africa and Botswana.


Will agree with that. More than 30% of the population has fled to the neighboring countries, mostly for economic reasons.

Dogecoin is more valuable.  ;D

The central bank says citizens have until September to exchange their remaining quadrillions of local dollars for a few greenbacks.

1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Well I dont think that they are printing alot of money because they only need to add more zero on their money like may be a piece of paper written 1billion Zimbabwean $ .


Zimbabwe will be unable to adopt crypto currency. Their country are so poor and most of the population are suffering from the lack of protein. I have a doubt that 50 % of their population even have a knowledge to operate a computer or know about it. This is another problem on why crypto isnt suitable to be adopted

Zimbabwe can adopt a multi-currency regime, in which fiat currencies such as the US Dollar, Euro, Renminbi, and the South African Rand is allowed along with crypto-currencies such as Bitcoin. And although Zimbabwe is a very poor country (by Western standards), up to 20% of the population have access to smartphones.

The government could save tons of resources by adopting the perfect, infallible automatic ledger that Bitcoin is, all of the banking infrastructures which need tons of money to be operative are gone, which then could be re-invested in teaching people and giving them basic phones for business (Bitcoin is operative under SMS technology) to allow for progress. It COULD be done, but the government is not going to do shit about it because its most likely not on their interest.

Zimbabwean Dollars to the moon! ┗(°0°)┛ ..○

Zimbabwe is so poor, their official alt coin is divisible by 1 million decimal places.

The question is how many pieces of paper would you need to even get a few greenbacks
Honestly if they had a PC they would make a killing online selling them on ebay + shipping.

(Sell them for $8-50 Canadian on ebay.ca or $4-50 US on ebay.com)

From Ebay

Zimbabwe 100 Trillion Dollars Banknotes,AA /2008,UNC,50 & 100 Trillion Series

FREE Shipping With Tracking, USA Based Seller
C $43.10
 Buy It Now
 +C $2.45 shipping   


3794 sold

3794*43.10 = $163,521 dollars sold for the low price price of $11 + Shipping

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-11/zimbabwe-officially-removes-local-currency-from-circulation

Well it was very low value compare with US dollar,etc.
I wonder if I have 175 Quadrillion Zimbabwean Dollars , what can I bought if I'm on Zimbabwean ? Am I categorized as rich people on Zimbabwean ?

I don't think so. Hyperinflation can make price of money drop alot, but not to cost of living. You can check it what can you buy with your 175 quadrillion zimbabwean dollars http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?country=Zimbabwe


I guess the banks in Zimbabwe was built to be larger than bank in other country, or people there made a bunker to save their money in home

you are joking, but i think that zinbabwe could actually benefit from any altcoin, they could start pumping some of those death coins, and take more profit than their toilet paper

are they technological advanced enough, because it is strange that they are not interested in crypto currency, any poor state should turn its attention to bitcoin or atlcoin at least

Even if it could be smart solution per se, especially as a base of monetary system, there is a serious problem: what distribution among the citizens would look like? Even if everyone gets public keys printed on paper, they will need a possibility of quick verification at any time.

they could start with signing message, each address belongs to one entity, so it should be a good way to prevent abuse

you can add then maybe a video for a more proof that you actually own that address, with your nickname added there

There is a huge demand for 100 trillion Zimbabwe Dollars in Ebay and other online shopping websites. But unfortunately, the ordinary Zimbabweans will be unable to profit from them, as I don't think that Ebay accepts vendors from Zimbabwe. Most of the sellers in Ebay are either from Western nations such as the United States or the United Kingdom, or from neighboring countries such as South Africa or Botswana.

They are using gold as payment. (not to praise gold bugs), however gold indeed is performing well in these situations.

However if the western world falls, bitcoin will be much more usable, since we got internet here.

Perhaps a zimbabwe designed altcoin could also help them, if they would get the infrastructure (radio,phone,internet) done.

It must be very disappointing for the people of Zimbabwe. It will bring so much of troubles for them. I wonder how many of them will be able to switch US dollars as the price of it is beyond their wildest of imaginations.

I've always found it amusing and fascinating how the Zimbabwean currency lost so much of its value.

I guess I could finally become a Gazillioniare! ;D

You know that sad laugh of surrender.... it became so natural here you would think that is how all of us laugh.

South African Rand is also legal tender in Zimbabwe nobody actually uses the official currency, it's all USD or Rand.
They could definitely use a bitcoin money transfer system from ZA->Zim because it's impossible as hell for migrant labors in South Africa to wire money home. You need piles of ID cards and money transfer corps charge enormous fees when usually these guys are just transferring weekly small amounts under $200.

Migrant workers need 'official South African ID' and most are not registered so can't use WU or other money transfer unless it's black market for like 10%+ fee
http://www.aljazeera.com/video/africa/2013/05/201352033350727917.html

Well one thing's for sure, growing up with that many zeros, these guys must have paranormal math abilities by age 30 just by going to the grocery store every week  :D Seriously though, imagine having to add, multiply, divide 6-8-digit numbers multiple times every day. Good for them! :)

The prices probably are in million Dollars. So it would not make a so big difference if you pay $3.50 for your bread or $3.5 Million. I doubt any seller would bother to use all the places of the prices.

It would be fun though in developed countries. Instead $4.99 you would maybe have $4,999,999,999.99 or so. :D Though in fact they would limit it too.

So what happens to the people living there? How do you buy anything?

many people turn to barter or other types of trade that are not dependent on currency. Sadly, in most affected countries, this also means a large increase in crime.

crazy In three years time the inflation went from under a thousand percent to nearly 80 billion percent. They had to constantly write additional zeros on their bank notes or else you had to take a whole wheelbarrow full of bills with you to buy a bread.

The Zimbabwe dollar is worthless. They're literally not worth the paper they're printed on (or at least they're not worth what they cost to make)

So, are you saying that a country could go broke if the printing cost for their currency exceeds what the denominations are worth?

<just my penny's worth of opinion>

Hyperinflation is a bitch. it can't be converted into any other currency. They have the second worse case of hyperinflation in history

AFAIK the Zim Dollar is no longer in use, Zimbabwe is now using the US Dollar

Edit:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwean_dollar

Yeah thats why some people made an auction for their Zimbabwean dollar since it wont be used again. You could look one of them here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1094455.0
Can you imagine then if you have this money which it is a part of history?  :D

That is just beautifully insane. In the future all fiats will end up like this against Bitcoin, because honest money always win and dishonest money goes Zimbabwe. By then we'll all be filthy rich and laughing at the fiat bagholders.

wow that is really impressive... how they dont search for alternatives or dont just cut some 0s on their money? it would be easier to use and it wouldnt require too much calculating

this analysis is to incredible for its own thread

im finding evidence of a fiat wide concerted effort by all Paper tigers

trying to Defend against the Crypto onslaught !!!!!!

This problem is caused when the government spends more than its gross domestic product and prints money to pay for the deficit. So the problem isn't the way the money is printed, but the fact that the government continues to spend more money than it generates.

I can't even imagine having to wheel barrel my cash to pay for a candy bar.

Old news. They've been off the ZWD for some time now.  Larger companies are paying salaries in USD.  I guess the informal sector works on USD and ZAR as well.

Yes, There is no alternative than USD for Zimbabwe in this present situation.

Yeah seems USD still become strongest currency in the world, so every hyper inflation country have to change its own currency into USD to make its economy be balanced again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_use_of_the_U.S._dollar
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/forex/040915/countries-use-us-dollar.asp

In a sense even if the US is fairing poorly on average it still performs better than replacement options based in fiat.
At least for now.
Waits for QE4 if it ever comes

So can we crypto-holders take over Zimbabwe?  What's holding their economy together?

The funny thing is, the paper notes are worth more on eBay than they are as currency in Zimbabwe.

The Zimbabwean 100 Trliion Notes in uncirculated condition have actually appreciated in value http://www.ebay.com/bhp/zimbabwe-100-trillion (http://www.ebay.com/bhp/zimbabwe-100-trillion)

I don't think bitcoin would be right for them,USD is a much better choice

Bitcoin would not work unless the blocksize limit was increased.

How would they even get bitcoin? Whole country doing faucets?

Zimbabwe was always shit in terms of economy since forever. Nothing can help the hyper inflation. I think they should ouster the actual government and start a new one with a new money there and try to build the economy up from scratch. I know this is the most difficult thing to do but it is also the only one which might work there.

Robert Mugabe is a total idiot who became a dictator.

His economic policy is a total failure and still there`s no revolution or rebellion in Zimbabwe.

By the way,i don`t know why do you have to compare zimbabwean dollars with btc.

And I don't know why you have to reply to topics that are a year old, without adding a useful reply.

Mugabe won't live long in any case, the guy is 92 years old and the country is on the brink of revolution.

The source isn't too good, but better than nothing:
http://metro.co.uk/2016/07/10/the-end-is-coming-for-robert-mugabe-zimbabwe-looks-to-be-on-the-brink-of-revolution-5997703/

And one Zimbabwean Dollar is now worth 0,0027 US Dollar, so basically 0,000004670 BTC