The dong (Vietnamese: đồng, Chữ Nôm: 銅) (; ; sign: ₫ or informally đ in Vietnamese; code: VND) has been the currency of Vietnam since 3 May 1978. It is issued by the State Bank of Vietnam. The dong was also the currency of the predecessor states of North Vietnam and South Vietnam, having replaced the previously used French Indochinese piastre. Formerly, it was subdivided into 10 hao (hào), which were further subdivided into 10 xu, neither of which are now used due to inflation. The Vietnamese dong has increasingly moved towards exclusively using banknotes, with lower denominations printed on paper and denominations over 10,000 dong, worth about 40¢ dollar or euro, printed on polymer, as of 2022 no coins are used. Generally, Vietnam is moving towards digital payments. As of December 2022, the Vietnamese dong was the third-lowest valued currency unit (behind the Venezuelan bolivar and Iranian rial), with one United States dollar equalling around 23,575 dong. Etymology The word "dong" came from the material which the pennies were made (bronze). The term refers to bronze coins used in feudal China and Vietnam. The term "hao" is a loanword from the Chinese háo (), meaning a tenth of a currency unit, while "xu" came from French sou. The sign is encoded . History French Indochina The piastre (known in Vietnam as "silver"), was the currency of French Indochina between 1885 and 1952. North Vietnam In 1946, the Viet Minh government (later to become the government of North Vietnam) introduced its own currency, the dong, to replace the French Indochinese piastre at par. Two revaluations followed, in 1951 and 1959; the first was at a rate of 100:1, the second at a rate of 1,000:1. South Vietnam Notes dually denominated in piastres and dong were issued in 1953 for the State of Vietnam, which evolved into South Vietnam in 1954. On 22 September 1975, after the fall of Saigon, the currency in South Vietnam was changed to a "liberation dong" worth 500 old Southern dong. United Vietnam and inflation After Vietnam was reunified, the dong was also unified on 3 May 1978. One new dong equalled one Northern dong or 0.8 Southern "liberation" dong. On 14 September 1985, the dong was revalued again, with one new dong worth 10 old dong. At that time, Vietnamese economists believed that revaluing the currency would increase its value, but it turned out to