It might have indicated something valuable to be worn around the neck, that was usually made of silver or gold, and may be related to the Bulgarian and Serbian term grivna (гривна, "bracelet").

Following Ukraine's declared secession from Russia in 1917, the Ukrainian People's Republic named its currency hryvnia after the grivna of Kievan Rus'; these were designed by Heorhiy Narbut.

The singular for the subdivision is копійка (kopiyka), the nominative plural is копійки (kopiyky) and the genitive is копійок (kopiyok).

In Ukraine, if the hryvnia sign is unavailable, the Cyrillic abbreviation "грн" is used (which can be transliterated as "hrn").

[citation needed] On 22 December 1917, the Central Rada established Ukraine's state bank.

On 5 January 1918, the first official 100 karbovanets banknote was issued, signed by Mykhailo Kryvetskyi, the first director of the state bank.

On 1 March 1918, the Central Council introduced a new currency, the hryvnia, consisting of 100 shahs and equaled to 1/2 of the previously issued karbovanets banknote.

In April 1918, Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky reintroduced the karbovanets as the main currency of Ukraine.

[7] It was replaced by the Russian ruble on 21 March 2014;[8] the hryvnia was allowed to be used for cash payments until 1 June.

[8] Because of a lack of low-denomination Russian rubles in those raions of the Donbas under the control of the pro-Russian separatist states of Donetsk and Luhansk, the hryvnia remained the predominant currency until 2022.

In October 2012, the National Bank of Ukraine announced that it was examining the possibility of withdrawing the 1 and 2 kopiyky coins from circulation,[10] as they had become too expensive to produce.

The design of the banknotes was developed by Ukrainian artists Vasyl Lopata and Borys Maksymov.

[19] Banknotes of the first series in denominations of 50 and 100 hryvnias also existed but were not introduced because these nominals were not needed in the economic crisis of the mid-1990s.

[22] In 2019, the National Bank of Ukraine introduced a 1,000 hryvnia banknote and was issued into circulation on 25 October 2019.

[citation needed] As from 7 February 2014, following political instability in Ukraine, the National Bank of Ukraine changed the hryvnia into a fluctuating/floating currency in an attempt to meet IMF requirements and to try to enforce a stable price for the currency in the Forex market.

[28] Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the official exchange rate of hryvnia was fixed at ₴29.25 per U.S. dollar and ₴33.17 per euro.