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Friends, clients and business associates of hedge fund manager Jonathan Hoenig received a generous gift along with their annual holiday card this season: as much as $100 trillion.

As you might expect, the bounty came with one little catch — the money, while real, was from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, and aside from its novelty value, the paper is worthless.

The founder of Capitalistpig Asset Management LLC in Chicago said he mailed out the trillions to make a point.

“Thirty years ago, one Zimbabwe dollar was worth $1.47,” said Mr. Hoenig. “But corruption, government spending and the seizure of private property undid the Zimbabwean economy,” he said, leading to civil unrest and ruinous inflation — which reached 231,000,000% in July.

The former floor trader at the Chicago Board of Trade said the same thing could happen here, which worries him and his high-net-worth investors, for whom he trades a variety of financial instruments seeking absolute returns.

“Even though my clients are wealthy, they are concerned about the eroding value of the dollar,” Mr. Hoenig said.

Most of his clients share his free-market philosophy, which led to the in-your-face name Mr. Hoenig selected for his firm.

“The profit motive, trading and speculation are good things, and I’m proud of what I do,” he said. “If you make more than $250,000 a year, you shouldn’t be expected to shoulder the burden for everything.”