Wednesday, April 21, 2010

New $100 bill unveiled to thwart high-tech counterfeits

The Treasury Department announced that it is revamping the $100 bill. The Associated Press said that the new design will employ a new moving microprint technology. There is a clock set up by the Treasury counting down the hours, minutes, and seconds to the bills unveiling. Officials are especially concerned with the $100 bill the favorite target of counterfeiters, who continually upgrade their tech arsenals with new color-copying and other softwares. Geithner says that this note incorporates the best technology available to ensure that they are staying ahead of the counterfeiters.

The new bill will go into circulation later this year and they are also coming out with new $5 bills.
I think this is a good idea to decrease counterfeiter. However I believe later in the future, someone will still find their way to make copies if they really wanted to.

6 comments:

Brian Stephens said...

The photo of the new bill is pretty cool!

This is a good idea because it will be a lot more complex to forge money. Are they only "revamping" the $100 and the $5?

Yoda Yee said...

I definitely believe that this is a great way to beat counterfeiters, but there will always be somebody who can counterfeit, just like there will always be computer hackers, spies etc...

Dana said...

I've noticed over the past few years that more and more bills have been getting different colors added to them besides shades of green, which apparently is the Treasury's way of preventing counterfeiting. It's a good idea, and it makes our money more appealing.

I've always wondered how those marker/pens work that you see run over $100 bills that are supposed to detect counterfeits...but how are large amounts of $100 bills checked for being counterfeits? I can't imagine someone running a marker/pen thing over stacks of bills.

ellery wong said...

It's a good idea to change up the design of the $100 bill every once in a while so that hackers and counterfeiters wont be able to keep up their technology to continue counterfeiting bills. But how come they are changing the $5 bill? why not the 20?

Even if we are adding some color, the US currency is still one of the most boring looking currencies. Like the Hong Kong currency, each bill is a different color.

Shehade said...

I think that changing the 100 dollar bill is a good idea because it will make it harder to make counterfeit money. Also i think that it looks pretty cool. I still like the old style because it it looks dope when you stack them up. It will probably take a while for they new 100 dollar bill to get in circulation and i cannot wait to get my hands on one.

prestonchan said...

I wonder why it took the United States so long to figure out that a more complex currency bill creates less or at least harder jobs for counterfeits. When I visited China, I remember that the bills there were all mulicolored. I can only imagine that China is one step ahead of the US in trying to deter counterfeits. However, now that I mention it, most if not all of the other countries I've visited have used multicolored bills.
Upon a little research, I found why the United States used a solid green color for money.
http://en.allexperts.com/q/General-History-674/made-money-green.htm
I don't know how reliable this source is, but it says that during the Civil War, the US government developed a special green ink that made counterfeiting more difficult. I guess as time progressed and counterfeiters caught onto this special green ink, the US government decided to switch it up a bit. I can only imagine that within our lifetimes the currency bills will change yet again to deter counterfeiters. However, I don't understand why changing the bill would deter counterfeiters when they can always just counterfeit past bills that have been in circulation.