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The important thing to keep in mind is that the only reason that money has any value is because people think that it has value. In the real world, a $20 bill is just a worthless piece of paper with a number written on it. The only reason people carry them around is that other people think that they have value - you can give that worthless piece of paper with a 20 written on it to someone at a store and get food or clothes or whatever - items with actual value. This means that an economy is essentially a religion, and for any religion to succeed, it requires the faith of its followers. Right now it sounds like your economy suffers from this lack of faith.
The first thing that I think you'll want to do is figure out not only how much money is out there, but how much money is moving around on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. If I have a million dollars but I just keep it in a suitcase under my bed, it doesn't effect the economy at all. Like I said, it's just worthless pieces of paper. After this, you can figure out how to appropriately reduce it. Some stuff that you might want to consider: Dynamic prices for objects in limited quantities at higher levels could work to eat away at the biggest piles of cash. You might also want to simply change the currency. 10,000 yen is worth roughly $82US - just lowering the numbers could have a big effect psychologically.
One thing to really keep in mind is the distribution of money through the levels (assuming your game has levels). If you want to get rid of money by making it so that low level characters can't afford potions, you'll drive people away from the game. And above all, remember that it's going to have to be a gradual thing if you don't want to upset the players.
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