Lebanon’s economic crisis is often told through images of soaring prices and shrinking paychecks. But behind the headlines, a quieter and deeper transformation unfolded in the country’s financial foundations.

The visualization below tracks Lebanon’s total foreign reserves from 1960 to 2022. Each point on the line represents a year’s worth of accumulated safety—money that could be used to stabilize the currency, pay for imports, and reassure investors that the country had room to maneuver.

In the early decades, from the 1960s to the mid-1990s, the line rises slowly. Reserves grow from almost zero to a few billion dollars. The pace is modest, but the direction is clear: Lebanon is gradually building a financial cushion. This growth reflects a banking sector that attracts regional capital, strong ties with the diaspora, and a reputation as a service and finance hub in the Middle East.

From the late 1990s onward, the curve steepens. By the 2000s and early 2010s, reserves climb rapidly, passing 20, 30, then 40 billion dollars. At first glance, the picture looks like a success story. The central bank appears strong; the currency peg looks credible; foreign investors and depositors continue to send dollars into the system.

But this impressive rise hides a fragile reality. Much of the growth depends on ever-increasing inflows of foreign currency, attracted by high interest rates and financial engineering rather than productive investment. The system works only as long as new money keeps coming in.

The breaking point appears after 2019. On the chart, the smooth mountain of reserves suddenly turns into a cliff. In just three years, Lebanon’s foreign reserves fall from over $52 billion to about $32.5 billion. That means more than a third of the country’s hard-currency buffer vanishes in a very short time.

This sharp decline marks a dramatic loss of monetary sovereignty. With fewer reserves, Lebanon can no longer defend its currency, support critical imports, or back up deposits in the banking system. The visible symptoms—currency collapse, inflation, shortages—are all downstream effects of the disappearing blue line in this chart.

The story this visualization tells is therefore not just about numbers. It is about time and trust.

It took six decades to build up Lebanon’s reserves, and only three years to unwind them. Rebuilding that buffer will require more than fresh inflows of dollars; it will demand structural reforms, restored confidence, and a new economic model that does not rely on unsustainable financial inflows.

By zooming out across sixty years, this visualization helps us see the crisis not as a sudden accident, but as the end of a long trajectory. The line on the chart is a reminder that economic stability can take generations to accumulate—and only a few turbulent years to lose.