In one country, banknotes are so filthy they literally fall apart in your pocket

The Somali shilling hasn't been freshly printed at scale since the 1990s, when the central government collapsed and there was no longer a central bank able to issue new currency through normal channels.

The effect is literal: the same physical banknotes have circulated for years, until they turn as soft as rags, riddled with holes, and barely legible — yet people keep paying with them, because for a long time there simply wasn't an alternative.

The economic twist: counterfeit copies of these worn-out notes, printed by private operators in neighboring countries, at one point circulated in quantities comparable to the original supply — and nobody could reliably tell them apart or pull them out of circulation.

The stakes: this is one of the few modern examples of an economy where trust in physical cash survived despite the near-total absence of the institution behind it — today mobile payments are steadily pushing it out, simply because they're more convenient than a shredded banknote.