25 Centavos Jorge Icaza

Ecuador has used the US dollar as its official currency since 2000, when dollarization ended the sucre following a catastrophic banking collapse that wiped out savings across the country. These collector-oriented centavo pieces issued decades later have no practical circulation function — the denomination exists symbolically, since fractional dollar coins in daily Ecuadorian commerce are simply US-minted cents.

Jorge Icaza, the Quito-born novelist best known for Huasipungo (1934), was one of Latin America's sharpest voices on the exploitation of indigenous laborers under the hacienda system. His inclusion in a national coin series reflects a long-running Ecuadorian effort to codify a literary and cultural pantheon in metal.