Dozens of Syrians took to the streets in regime-run areas to protest the sharp increase in prices and collapse of the currency.
The protests that has not been witnessed since years also saw calls to remove President Bashar Assad and his ruling Baath party.
"He who starves his people is a traitor," some of the protesters chanted at the protest in the southern city of Sweida.
In regime-held areas, prices go up several times a day, forcing many shops to close, unable to keep up with the chaos.
This comes as Syria faces near complete isolation with the toughest US sanctions yet start to come into effect as of next week.
While Assad may have won the military war against his opponents with the help of allies Russia and Iran, he now faces an even bigger challenge of governing while more than 80% of his people live in poverty, AFP reported.
This week the Syrian currency dropped to a record 3,500 pounds to the dollar on the black market - compared to 700 at the beginning of the year. Some staples such as sugar, rice and medicine are becoming hard to find.
"The Syrian economy has spiraled out of control and the regime cannot control the Syrian pound anymore," said Osama Kadi, a Canada-based Syrian economic adviser.
The pain is likely to grow under the new US sanctions, which Washington says aim to punish Assad and his top lieutenants for crimes committed during the country´s conflict.
Effectively, the sanctions prevent anyone around the world from doing business with Syrian officials or state institutions or participate in the war-ravaged country´s reconstruction. They also target anyone involved in smuggling to Syria, mostly from Iraq and Lebanon.
The US has already imposed sanctions on Assad and a number of his top officials. The new authority, known as the US Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, allows foreign companies to be targeted, including in neighboring Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq.
"This legislation will close all the doors on the Syrian regime and any person that deals with it," said Nizar Zakka, a Lebanese citizen who is a member of the Caesar Act team, a group that advises US authorities on implementing the sanctions.
The first wave of sanctions will be imposed on June 17. Three other stages will follow before the end of August, he said.
Caesar is the code name of a Syrian forensic photographer who graphically exposed the brutality of the government crackdown by smuggling out thousands of photos of torture victims.
Experts say the new sanctions will be a heavy blow to a country where 80% of the population already live below the poverty line, making less than $100 a month, according to the United Nations. The Syrian government called the sanctions "economic terrorism."
Some of the repercussions have already been profound.
Bread prices increased nearly 60% in the opposition-held northwestern province of Idlib, even though the territory is not included in the new sanctions. Its population, many of them unemployed and living in displaced camps, have also been hit hard by the collapse of the pound, since it is the main currency used in Idlib.
The Syrian pound - which had been at 47 to the dollar at the start of the conflict - had held steady at around 500 to the dollar from 2014 until last year.
According to AFP, the Syrian government has lost major income from resources in areas outside its control, including oil fields in the east held by US-backed fighters and farmlands that produced much of the country´s wheat.
Also, the financial turmoil in neighboring Lebanon has caused a lot of damage. Banks there have served as a gateway to the world for Syrian businessmen, officials and average people. Now Lebanon´s tight capital controls lock away billions of dollars in their accounts.
"Lebanon was not only Syria´s economic get-out-of-jail card, but it is the beating heart of Syria´s business community," Danny Makki, a Britain-based Syrian journalist and political analyst, wrote recently for the Middle East Institute.
Lebanon is also panicking about losing Syria, particularly the electricity it still buys from the war-torn country.
