Every empire believes it’s different — until its money dies. From Weimar Germany to the Soviet Union, Zimbabwe to Venezuela, four currencies followed the same six-stage pattern from stability to economic collapse. Now, in 2025, the US dollar is showing the same warning signs. Capital flight. Foreign sell-offs. Trillions printed. Trust eroding. This is the moment in history when every nation thinks it’s immune — right before the fall.
In this episode, we trace the 6 stages that destroy currencies:
1️⃣ Crisis & Money Printing
2️⃣ Inflation Emerges
3️⃣ Loss of Confidence
4️⃣ Capital Flight (where the US dollar is today)
5️⃣ Hyperinflation
6️⃣ Currency Death
Four currencies have already completed the cycle. The question is whether the dollar can escape Stage 5. Learn the history. Recognize the pattern. Prepare for the financial crisis before it’s too late.
If this opened your eyes — subscribe. Because when the pattern completes, you’ll want to understand what happened and why.
Chapters
00:00 – 6 Stages of Death
04:21 – German Blueprint
06:04 – Soviet Union Collapse
07:15 – Zimbabwe Experience
08:33 – Venezuela Pattern
10:43 – US Dollar at Stage 4
13:10 – The Warning
There’s a six-step pattern that has killed every major currency in modern history. Four times in the last 100 years, it’s ended the same way. Total collapse, not slow decline, not recession, collapse. Germany, the Soviet Union, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, four currencies, four deaths. And right now, the US dollar has entered the same sequence. We’re not at the beginning. We’re not at the end. We’re at stage four. The point where smart money starts to run. When governments still deny what’s coming, but history never does. This is the moment every empire believes it’s different. It never is. Every currency collapse follows the same six stages. Not sometimes, every time. Stage one, crisis and printing. A nation hits a wall. War, debt, economic collapse. The government runs out of money. Tax revenues vanish. Expenses explode. And the easiest way out is to print. They don’t call it printing. They call it quantitative easing, liquidity support, stimulus. Different words, same math. Money is created from nothing. And for a while, it feels like salvation. Bills get paid, markets calm, politicians declare victory. Stage one always feels like hope, but it’s the setup. Stage two, inflation emerges. Prices start rising slowly at first, then faster. The government blames everything except itself. Supply chains, foreign enemies, corporate greed. They claim it’s temporary, transitory, controllable. The people want to believe it, so they do. They keep saving in the same currency, trusting that tomorrow will look like yesterday, but inflation doesn’t reverse. It compounds. Stage two is the lull before the panic. Stage three, loss of confidence. People begin to notice the truth. Their savings buy less. Their salaries stretch thinner every month. They stop trusting the government’s numbers and start looking for exits. Gold, land, crypto, foreign currency, anything real. They spend faster, save less. The velocity of money surges and prices rise even faster. The system begins to feed on itself. Stage four, capital flight. The smart money runs first. Corporations, elites, foreign investors. They move their wealth out while they still can. They buy property abroad. Offshore accounts, hard assets. The middle class tries to follow, but it’s too late. The banks limit withdrawals. Transfers are blocked. Governments call it protection, but it’s panic control. This is the point of no return because once confidence leaves, it never comes back. Stage five, hyperinflation. The government loses control completely. Money becomes meaningless. Prices double daily, then hourly. Workers are paid twice a day and rush to spend before the money dies. Shops repric goods midtransaction. A lifetime of savings buys a loaf of bread. Paper money becomes trash. That’s not metaphor. People literally burn it for warmth. Society fractures. Starvation rises. Order collapses. Stage six, death. The currency is abandoned. Sometimes officially, replaced by a new money with a few zeros chopped off. Sometimes unofficially when people stop accepting it altogether. Either way, it’s over. The paper becomes relic. The empire declines. And history writes another warning. No one reads. Four times this centurylong pattern has played out to the end. And every time the government swore, we’re different. Let’s look at what happened because every one of them believed the same lie America believes right now. Germany 1919. The Great War is over and the bill has arrived. 132 billion gold marks in reparations. Germany doesn’t have it. The economy is shattered. Factories idle. Tax revenue evaporated. So the government makes the choice every desperate government makes. It prints. At first it feels manageable. A few billion marks here, a few billion there. Just enough to pay bills. But every new mark chases the same amount of goods. Prices creep up. By 1921, one US dollar costs 60 marks. By 1922, 7,000. By mid1923, 4 trillion. A loaf of bread costs 200 billion marks. An egg costs 80 billion. Workers demand to be paid twice a day. Families burn cash in stoves because it’s cheaper than firewood. Children play with bundles of notes like building blocks. The middle class gone. Savings gone. Faith in government gone. And in the vacuum rises extremism, violence and despair. Hyperinflation doesn’t just destroy money, it destroys trust, the foundation of civilization itself. Germany’s mark dies. The government replaces it with a new currency, the rent mark. One rent mark equals 1 trillion old marks. A lifetime of savings converted to dust. The pattern’s first modern proof. and the world swears never again. Fast forward seven decades. The Soviet Union stands on paper as a superpower. But beneath the surface, the rot has set in. Oil prices crash. Afghanistan drains the Treasury. The arms race bleeds the budget dry. By the mid 1980s, the Soviet state is broke. They can’t cut spending. That would admit weakness. They can’t borrow from the West. No one trusts their books, so they print. Rubless flood the system. Prices rise, but official numbers lie. Shops empty. Black markets thrive. A pair of jeans costs a week’s wage. Breadlines stretch for blocks. People see through the illusion. They hoard dollars, gold, cigarettes, anything real. The ruble is dying and everyone knows it. By 1991, the Soviet Union dissolves and the ruble with it. Inflation hits 25,500%. Pensions evaporate. Families trade food for clothing, jewelry for fuel. 90 years of empire vanish in months. Stage six complete. Zimbabwe. Once the bread basket of Africa, fertile land, educated workforce, thriving exports. Then came land seizures, corruption, collapse, tax revenue vanished, debt piled up, and once again the government printed. By 2001, inflation was 100%. By 2003, 600%. By 2006, 100,000%. By 2008, 79 billion% per month. Prices doubled every few hours. A loaf of bread cost 300 billion Zimbabwe dollars, then 300 trillion, then you couldn’t buy bread at all. They printed a $100 trillion note. It couldn’t buy a bus ticket. People used money as note paper. Workers were paid multiple times per day. Then one day, the government just gave up. They abandoned their own currency and adopted foreign ones. The exchange rate 35 quadrillion Zimbabwe dollars to1 US. If you had 100 trillion Zimbabwe dollars, you got 40 cents. That’s what stage six looks like. An entire economy erased. Venezuela, one of the richest nations on Earth. Oil reserves larger than Saudi Arabia. For decades, prosperity looked permanent. Then oil prices fell and the printing began. By 2014, inflation hit 60%. By 2016, 800%. By 2018, 1 million%. Money lost 99.9% of its value. They chopped zeros off the bills. Three, then five, then six. But it didn’t matter. Hyperinflation had already taken hold. People starved. Doctors fled. Teachers became sex workers. Zoo animals were slaughtered for food. 7 million citizens fled the country. The boulevard still exists, but 90% of all transactions happen in US dollars. The currency is dead. The nation still breathes, but barely. The pattern again complete. Four currencies, four collapses, four sets of leaders who all said the same thing. It won’t happen here. Now it’s our turn. Stage one happened in 2008. The financial crisis. The response printing. They called it quantitative easing. Trillions created to bail out banks, stabilize markets, and save the system. Stage two came in 2020. Co shutdowns, mass spending, $6 trillion printed in two years. The US money supply exploded 40%. And the government said the same words every collapsing currency says. It’s temporary. It’s necessary. We can control it. Then came stage three, inflation. First 5%, then 7%, then 9%. They blamed supply chains, wars, corporate greed, never the printing, never the debt. But people noticed. Groceries doubled, rents spiked, savings eroded, confidence began to crack. And now we’ve entered stage 4, capital flight. Foreign nations are dumping dollars. China has sold over $300 billion in US treasuries since 2021. Russia has eliminated dollar reserves entirely. The BRICS nations are building trade systems outside the dollar. Saudi Arabia has begun accepting yuan for oil. Global dollar reserves have fallen from 73% in 2000 to under 55% today. The exodus is accelerating and the world isn’t waiting for permission. Stage 4 is when the smart money runs quietly before headlines, before panic, before the public even notices what’s happening. Meanwhile, the US debt just passed $36 trillion. Deficits exceed $2 trillion a year. Interest payments alone over $1 trillion annually. And every time the system shakes, the printing resumes. This isn’t fiscal management. It’s financial triage on a patient already bleeding out. The US dollar still looks powerful, but so did the pound in 1945. So did the mark in 1920. Reserve currencies die slowly, then all at once. And once confidence breaks, it never returns. Every government in history swore they’d stop before collapse. Rome, Spain, Britain, Germany, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, all believed they were special. All said, “We can manage this.” None did. The sixstage pattern is mathematical. It doesn’t care about ideology, power, or pride. It’s a law of trust. And when that trust is broken, no decree can rebuild it. You cannot print prosperity. You cannot borrow forever. And you cannot debase your currency without consequence. Right now, we’re two stages away from the end. Hyperinflation and death. Stage five and six. They don’t arrive with warning. They arrive with panic. One day the dollar is stable, the next prices double, then double again, then stores go empty and the old rules stop applying. That’s how it happened in Germany. That’s how it happened in Zimbabwe. That’s how it’s happening again. The alarm isn’t in the headlines. It’s in the math. It’s in the debt chart that only rises. The deficits that never shrink. The inflation that cools but never reverses. The foreign nations quietly building lifeboats while the ship still looks unsinkable. The US dollar has entered stage four and every currency that reached this point, every single one died. Maybe the dollar will break the pattern. Maybe modern economics really has conquered history. Maybe we’ll unwind trillions in debt without collapse. Maybe. But history says otherwise. Because history doesn’t care about hope. It cares about math and math doesn’t lie. When empires face stage 4, they have two choices. Reverse course or accelerate collapse. Cut spending, end printing, restore trust through discipline and pain, or deny, delay, and debase until the currency dies. So far, we’ve chosen denial. And the window for reversal is closing fast. You can’t stop stage 5 once it starts. You can only prepare for it, understand it, recognize it when it arrives because it always looks temporary until it’s permanent. Four currencies died following this pattern. Four governments ignored the warnings. Four societies paid the price. And now the dollar stands at the edge. This isn’t fear. It’s precedent. It’s math. It’s history repeating itself for the fifth time. You can look away. You can call it doom. But when the pattern completes, when hyperinflation hits, when the dollar breaks, you’ll wish you’d understood it sooner because history doesn’t whisper. It repeats louder each time. If this opened your eyes to what’s really happening, subscribe because when the next stage begins, you’ll want to understand what happened and why. History already told us the ending. The only question left is how fast we reach it.