50 Đồng – South Vietnam

In the final days of April 1975, South Vietnam's currency, the đồng, was in a state of total collapse, mirrorling the disintegration of the Saigon government itself. Hyperinflation, a long-term problem exacerbated by massive U.S. aid cuts and rampant wartime deficit spending, reached its catastrophic peak. As North Vietnamese forces closed in on the capital, confidence evaporated entirely. The black market exchange rate skyrocketed, with the value of the đồng plummeting by the hour; citizens desperately tried to convert their savings into gold, U.S. dollars, or any tangible asset, rendering the national currency virtually worthless for practical transactions.

This monetary chaos was the culmination of a decade of severe economic strain. The South Vietnamese state had long financed its war effort through printing money rather than taxation, flooding the economy with đồng without productive backing. The 1973 Paris Peace Accords and the subsequent sharp reduction of American financial support removed the last prop holding up the system. By early 1975, as territory fell rapidly, the government's revenue base vanished while military expenses soared, leading to a final, frenzied print run of banknotes that sealed the đồng's fate.

The currency's effective demise preceded the political fall of Saigon. By the time of the surrender on April 30, the monetary system had already ceased to function. The victorious Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) immediately declared the old South Vietnamese đồng invalid, initiating a complex process of currency exchange to unify the monetary system with that of North Vietnam. This act symbolically and practically ended the financial architecture of the former state, as citizens were required to swap their now-worthless old notes for the new currency of a unified Vietnam under strict regulations and limited timelines.