10 Sucres

Ecuador's sucre had been losing ground to inflation throughout the 1980s, and by 1991 the 10-sucre denomination — once a coin of meaningful purchasing power — was already approaching irrelevance in daily transactions. The shift to nickel-clad steel for this issue reflects the central bank's attempt to cut production costs as the currency's real value collapsed beneath its face value. The sucre would eventually be abandoned entirely in 2000, when Ecuador dollarized its economy following a catastrophic banking crisis that wiped out roughly 70% of the country's GDP.