A growing number of people in rural North Korea are converting their spare cash into U.S. dollars or Chinese yuan, as fears grow that the North Korean won is rapidly losing value, Daily NK has learned. Even in farming communities that once showed little interest in foreign currency, the belief that holding onto North Korean won “means taking a loss” is spreading.
According to a Daily NK source in North Pyongan province on Wednesday, people in rural areas such as Ryongchon and Tongchang counties have increasingly been traveling to nearby cities to exchange even small amounts of North Korean won for dollars or yuan. Even when the sum is small, people believe holding foreign currency, rather than the domestic won, better protects the value of their savings.
In the past, farming communities had little occasion to use foreign currency in everyday transactions, making them relatively insensitive to exchange rate swings compared with city dwellers. This was especially true in mountainous areas, where jangmadang, the informal markets that have become the backbone of North Korea’s economy since the 1990s, open only about once every ten days, and trade largely takes the form of barter or won transactions, leaving little chance to encounter foreign currency at all.
That began to change in the second half of 2024, when market prices and exchange rates started climbing sharply. Even in rural areas, sellers have increasingly begun pricing goods in won based on that day’s exchange rate. As prices have failed to come down, farming communities have grown more anxious that holding onto won means watching the value of their assets erode.
“The exchange rate has kept rising for the past two years, while the value of the national currency (North Korean won) keeps falling,” the source said. “Even people in rural areas who used to have no interest in foreign currency now feel a strong need to convert even small amounts of money into it.”
The source continued, “Before COVID-19, $100 was worth about 800,000 to 900,000 North Korean won, but now it’s worth about 6 million won. Someone who had 900,000 won back then would only have the equivalent of about $15 today, while someone who had $100 now has 6 million won. That says it all.”
Won described as “worse than paper”
A source in Ryanggang province offered a similar account. “People in border areas use a lot of yuan, but in farming communities where trading isn’t the main livelihood, people tended to hold what little money they had in won,” the source said. “Over the past two years, though, prices and the exchange rate have risen enough to make people’s jaws drop, and it has become the topic of conversation everywhere. That’s made rural people feel it’s urgent to hold yuan too.”
Some in these communities have reportedly gone so far as to say the won “is now worth less than scrap paper” and that “only people who haven’t caught on still hold” it.
“Trust in the national currency was already low because of the currency reform (a reference to North Korea’s 2009 currency redenomination, which wiped out much of the population’s private savings), and it’s been shaken again by the recent surge in prices and the exchange rate,” the source said. “During the currency reform, everyone suffered losses equally. But now the gap between people widens sharply depending on whether they hold foreign currency, and that’s made the preference for it even more pronounced.”
The source added, “No matter how strictly the state cracks down on the use of foreign currency, what’s the point of a crackdown when the value of the national currency keeps falling like this? The reality now is that the belief that holding foreign currency, rather than won, is the only way to avoid losses is only getting stronger.”
Still, even as the preference for foreign currency as a store of value spreads to the countryside, not everyone can respond to the won’s decline by holding dollars or yuan. Most farming communities, who scrape by on farming alone, have no spare cash to convert into foreign currency in the first place, leaving them fully exposed to the shock of rising prices and a weakening won.
In the end, whether people hold foreign currency assets is becoming a new dividing line in economic status, even in the countryside.
“Anyone with even a little won can convert it into dollars or yuan right now, but people who have no won to convert can’t do that,” the source said. “Life is getting harder by the day, and as the gap between those who hold foreign currency and those who don’t becomes something people feel firsthand, it’s only deepening their frustration.”
Reporting from inside North Korea
Daily NK operates networks of sources inside North Korea who document events in real-time and transmit information through secure channels. Unlike reporting based on state media, satellite imagery, or defector accounts from years past, our journalism comes directly from people currently living under the regime. We verify reports through multiple independent sources and cross-reference details before publication.
Our sources remain anonymous because contact with foreign media is treated as a capital offense in North Korea — discovery means imprisonment or execution. This network-based approach allows Daily NK to report on developments other outlets cannot access: market trends, policy implementation, public sentiment, and daily realities that never appear in official narratives.
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