Everyone around me made 60% annual returns. I made zero.

December 2024. Dollar at 103 rubles. Everyone around me: "Bro, convert everything to rubles, park it at 21% deposit, then take it back in dollars, it's basically free money."

I didn't do it.

A year later, Bloomberg reports: ruble up 45% — best performance since 1994. Dollar now at 78. Add the ~15% deposit rate. Anyone who went into rubles in January cleared ~60% in dollar terms. Holding dollars outright? About 5%.

I left 55 percentage points on the table.

But while the ruble was strengthening, something else was happening quietly. The National Wealth Fund shrank 3.2x, from $113.5B to $35.7B. Oil and gas revenues fell 22%, with Urals trading at $35 against a budgeted $70. The budget deficit grew 5x. Meanwhile foreign currency trading had been suspended since June 2024, exporters were required to surrender 80% of revenue, and sanctions killed organic dollar demand.

A weakening economy and a strengthening currency at the same time. The answer: this isn't economic strength. It's a currency shortage inside a closed system.

Then I thought about history. 1998: ruble down 70% in 6 months, 84% inflation, default. 2022: first sovereign debt default in 100 years, exchange rate hits 142. Two complete collapses in my lifetime.

There's also a personal factor: all my income is in rubles. Keeping savings there too means one shock wipes out both income and capital simultaneously. And I don't plan to spend the rest of my life in Russia.

Bottom line:

I missed 55%. But savings aren't about maximizing returns. They're about not losing everything in a single day.

Taleb put it perfectly in Antifragile: "In a strategy that entails ruin, benefits never offset risks of ruin." No return justifies the risk of total loss.

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P.S. Not financial advice. You have a different risk profile, time horizon, and all the rest. Please don't do what I did.

Stay tuned

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