The Iraqi dinar "revaluation"

A currency-speculation pitch that state and federal regulators have been warning about since at least 2013.

Redenomination is not revaluation

This is the whole trick, and it is worth being precise about.

Redenomination means striking zeros off the currency. A country swaps 1,000 old units for 1 new unit. Prices, wages and savings are all restyled by the same factor, so nobody gains or loses anything. It is an accounting tidy-up, usually after a long period of inflation has left people carrying absurd numbers around. Turkey did it in 2005. Zimbabwe has done it repeatedly.

Revaluation means the currency genuinely becomes worth more against other currencies: your dinar buys more dollars than it did yesterday.

When Iraqi officials discuss "deleting zeros", they are discussing redenomination. Promoters quote those statements as evidence of an imminent revaluation. If Iraq redenominated tomorrow, a holder of old notes would exchange them for a smaller number of new notes worth exactly the same. The stack in the drawer would not become valuable. It would just be restyled.

Why there is no exit

The Washington State Attorney General's alert sets out the mechanism plainly. Buyers are not told that the notes "can be redeemed only in Iraq, as most of the established currency exchange houses and banking institutions cannot convert the Dinar to US dollars." And because "no exchange exists for the Iraqi Dinar, dealers can charge whatever they want to sell and buy back the Dinars."

That is the part that makes it a trap rather than merely a bad bet. Even if you were right about the currency, you hold a physical object with no liquid market. The Texas State Securities Board puts the test as a question worth asking about any investment: "Who is going to buy the dinars you have in a drawer in your house?"

How the pitch is delivered

• Dealer websites selling notes for cash, wire, money order or cash on delivery.
• "Gurus" publishing a constant stream of imminent-revaluation claims, often with specific rates and dates that pass without comment.
• Appeals to authority: vague references to the IMF, the US Treasury, or unnamed insiders.
• Urgency: the window is always closing.
• Sometimes a religious or patriotic frame, and community pressure from other holders.

The scheme has, in the Texas regulator's words, been "surprisingly long-lived, giving federal and state regulators and nonprofit consumer groups time to issue warnings". Long-running is not the same as credible. It has lasted because dates that pass are simply replaced with new ones.

The same pattern, other currencies

Iraqi dinar is the best-known version, but the structure repeats: a currency from a country in difficulty, a story about an imminent revaluation or a reserve backing, physical notes sold at a wide spread, and no market to sell into. Vietnamese dong, Zimbabwe dollars and Venezuelan bolívars have all been sold this way. The tell is always the same: you are buying a physical object from someone who also sets the buy-back price.

If you already hold dinar

• You have not necessarily lost everything: the notes are real currency, worth the real exchange rate minus whatever spread you can find.
• Do not buy more to "average down". That is the same trade again.
• Be wary of anyone offering to help you sell, or claiming to run a redemption programme. Recovery scams follow the original.
• If you were sold notes on an explicit promise of revaluation, that may be actionable. Report it to your state securities regulator or financial conduct authority.

A note on what this page is not

We do not track dinar news, publish rate predictions, or link to dealer sites. This page exists because the question has real search demand and the honest answer is hard to find between the people selling.

Factual reference page for the Iraqi dinar →