Bulgarian coins that are being taken out of circulation are as heavy as the Eiffel Tower

Large retail chains are reporting an increase in cash payments, probably as people try to use up the leva and stotinki they have on hand. But how much money are we talking about?

The smallest coin can help us imagine the scale of the processes currently underway. Officially, there are 924,111,098 1-stotinka coins in circulation. If we put them all together, their weight would exceed 1,663 tons. If we collect all coins - from 1 stotinka to 2 leva, the total weight would exceed 10,500 tons. For example, the Eiffel Tower, with all its elevators and additional elements, weighs less - 10,100 tons.

The data shows that so far, 37% of Bulgarian leva and stotinki have already been withdrawn and are now history. How many Bulgarian banknotes are still in circulation? Data from the Bulgarian National Bank shows that since July, when it became clear that we had been accepted into the eurozone, to November, the total number of banknotes has decreased by almost 100,000 notes - from 561,093,609 on July 30 to 476,154,914 on November 30. The most common are the 50 leva notes, and the rarest are the 5 leva notes.

The situation with coins is very interesting. As of November 30, there are over 3 billion of them. The most numerous are the 1-stotinka coins, and the least numerous are the 2 leva coins. In a few weeks, this colossal amount of banknotes and coins is expected to be collected for storage in the BNB's centers.