There is something missing in this story, which is the unified Houthi resolve to not accept post-2016 bank notes. And that resolve is not without cost - one example being the awareness campaign around serial numbers, and I'm sure there are many others.

Without that resolve, the money is "fungible" again.

If the same thing were to be tried in the US, you'd have to have everyone in a given region (say, Florida) agree that only pre-2022 dollars would be accepted, or else it wouldn't work - all the money would still be fungible. And they'd have to have a reason to do that. The widespread availability of inter-regional ecommerce makes it even more complicated, because what would really stop a Floridian from taking advantage of that? What are you going to do, stop trucks at the Florida border and make them show proof that the bill of sale was paid in pre-2022 dollars?

Also, obviously, only works in a cash-based society. There are no serial numbers on the dollars in your checking account.