> the Somali shilling
Pump the breaks. Have you read the Wikipedia page about the Somali Shilling?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_shilling
> Following the breakdown in central authority that accompanied the civil war beginning in the early 1990s, the value of the Somali shilling plunged. The Central Bank of Somalia, the nation's monetary authority, also shut down operations. Rival producers of the local currency, including autonomous regional entities such as the Puntland territory, subsequently emerged. These currencies included the Na shilling, which failed to gain widespread acceptance, and the Balweyn I and II, forgeries of pre-1991 bank notes. Competition for seigniorage drove the value down to about $0.04 per ShSo (1000) note, approximately the commodity cost. Consumers also refused to accept bills larger than the 1991 denominations, which helped to stop devaluation from spiraling further upwards. The pre-1991 notes and subsequent forgeries were treated as the same currency. It took large bundles to make cash purchases, and the United States dollar was often used for larger transactions.
Essentially, it's not like the economy of Somalia remained at a status quo when central banks and government went absent. The civil war of the 1990's essentially ripped the nation apart in autonomous region, local economies, black markets,... with many different competing currencies, forgeries of the Shilling and little to no rule of law depending on where you were.
As of late, this is changing as power is centralized again and instilled in a legitimate government:
> In the late 2000s, Somalia's newly established Transitional Federal Government revived the defunct Central Bank of Somalia. The monetary authority assumed the task of both formulating and implementing monetary policy.[6] Owing to a lack of confidence in the Somali shilling, the U.S. dollar was widely accepted as a medium of exchange alongside the Somali shilling. Dollarization notwithstanding, the large issuance of the Somali shilling increasingly fueled price hikes, especially for low-value transactions. The new Central Bank of Somalia expects this inflationary environment to come to an end as soon as the Central Bank assumes full control of monetary policy and replaces the presently circulating currency introduced by the private sector.
> With a significant improvement in local security, Somali expatriates began returning to the country for investment opportunities. Coupled with modest foreign investment, the inflow of funds helped the Somali shilling increase considerably in value. By March 2014, the currency had appreciated by almost 60% against the U.S. dollar over the previous 12 months. The Somali shilling was the strongest among the 175 global currencies traded by Bloomberg, rising close to 50 percentage points higher than the next most robust global currency over the same period.
Also, the acceptance of a currency in a community is backed by the fact that you can take a dispute to a court of law which carries the legitimacy to enforce the rule of law. That is, if you are indebted and you want to repay a debt using legal tender, you have the assurance that the debt will be extinguished at least in the eyes of an authority. Or, more to the point, there's assurance that the authority will protect you from creditors seeking further satisfaction from you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_tender