2000 Won

The 2008 date places this note squarely within the period when the DPRK was quietly expanding its domestic denomination range ahead of the catastrophic 2009 redenomination, which wiped out personal savings by converting old won to new at 100:1 with strict exchange caps. Notes of this vintage effectively became worthless to ordinary citizens overnight — the government allowed households to exchange only a limited ceiling, leaving anyone with significant cash holdings unable to recover their funds.

A watermark as the sole documented security feature reflects the technological limits of the Pyongyang printing infrastructure at the time.