Governments go bankrupt all the time. A new government is appointed and a new currency is issued. Previous debts get cancelled. Older currency is worthless. The system restarts. Sometimes the country stays the same. Other times, one or more new nations emerge from the ashes of the old. The Soviet Union basically went bankrupt. Modern Russia emerged from that, and they kept the ruble. They lost the Warsaw pact. England reneged on the pound sterling during the great depression, (by refusing to honor their pledge of exchanging pound sterling for real silver bullion,) but emerged from that with a fiat English paper pound. The government and the monarchy remained, the bank remained, even as they effectively refused to honor their debts. England lost global reserve currency status, which switched from the pound sterling to the gold backed US dollar. So you see, the situation can vary, from event to event. Usually, however, it is the bank depositors who get screwed out of their savings, and holders of wealth in the form of paper assets, or paper currencies, also are often screwed. Stocks, bonds, fiat paper notes, all are usually bad news. Who wins? The holders of debts who no longer have to pay them. The holders of real assets, which can be bought and traded in whatever new currency system emerges.