Burning the bank: Users torch dollars in new Internet trend

A number of videos emerged online, reportedly shot in Uzbekistan, in which people challenge each other to burn foreign currency, the BBC reported on Sunday.

Dollars, euros and rubles are the foreign currencies that have been chosen to be torched. The videos seem to be a display of “bravery” between different clans in the former Soviet country.

“Listen up you guys from Andijan [the name of a clan in Uzbekistan] …here is our response to you,” one man is heard saying in one of the videos shared on instant messaging application Telegram.

“You burnt one bill…we Tashkent guys are going to burn all of these for you,” the man said as he pointed to a group of 100-dollar bills.

Around 16 percent of the Uzbek population lives below the poverty line, according to the United Nations Development Program.

One prominent Uzbek blogger criticized the trend calling those involved to show their “bravery” by donating the money - instead of destroying it - to a leukemia hospital in Tashkent, the BBC reported.