More Holey than Godly?

I found three scattered around the world - had to check, of course:-
       One explanation said - "This goes back to some of the first uses of metal coinage in Middle and Far East regions, and it had several purposes, depending on the size of the “coin”.
At least one purpose, popular for much of Chinese and nearby Asian history, was to string the coins together in prearranged numbers, usually some order of magnitude of 10, creating rudimentary “superunit” denominations of currency. Buying something that costs 100 coins? The merchant doesn't have the time to watch you count them out of your purse one at a time. But if you'd tied them in strings of 10, it becomes much easier and faster to count out, while allowing you to easily “break" a string into its individual coins if you only needed one or two and didn’t have any loose:"
       Another gave "my" reason; you could "string" them. 
The "up" side  -  less likely to be lost.     :¬)
The "down" side - If you DO lose them, you lose them all.   : ¬ (