5 000 000 000 Dollars

By mid-2008, Zimbabwe's month-on-month inflation had exceeded 2.2 million percent, and the Reserve Bank was locked in a losing race with its own printing presses. The five billion dollar note — five thousand million — was functionally worth very little within days of issue, and Fidelity Printers and Refiners in Harare could not produce denominations fast enough to keep pace with price movement. The colour-shifting ink and security thread were expensive features to include on a note that would be economically obsolete before the ink dried.

Gideon Gono, who signed the series throughout this period, later published a self-exculpatory memoir. The note predates the January 2009 redenomination by only months.