Bitcoin Forum

I was just having my cup of tea and watching the ongoing Ashes series... a strange thought came to my mind.

All of us know that one of the main advantage with Bitcoin is that it can't be counterfeited. On the other hand, counterfeiting is a major issue with fiat cash.
According to some estimates, the sale of counterfeits and pirated goods are worth $1,700 billion per year, and the sale of counterfeited banknotes is worth $250 billion.

Is it possible to use this technology to prevent the counterfeiting of bank notes? Don't tell me to install microchips on all the banknotes. We need to keep the manufacturing cost below $0.10 per piece. I thought about it for 2 hours, but no practical solution came to my mind. Do you guys have any suggestions?

Are you sure about this number?? Looks exorbitant!!

Blockchain technology can't help in identifying bank issued notes until a microchip is installed in that note! There has to be a tracking mechanism installed in the physical goods to attach it with the controlling blockchain, otherwise you won't get the desired output! Because two notes with same number can't exist and a tracking mechanism is needed to separate the legal note from a counterfeited note! I am practically getting no other solution to it!

Talking about goods, I think wabi tried to do this but not sure how is there project working.

And talking about notes, do you think government will do this (tracking mechanism on the notes)? I do not know what will be the props and cons but if the government wants to do that they can easily implement it like they do in the passports or other identification materials these days.

do you know how much faked paper money only inside the usa genereated on a daily basis, holysh**

its in the millions per day..more then 20 million dollars per day only inside usa, do you get this!

blockchain can stop all this kind of fake problems.

I doubt if it is possible without the use of microchips.
What the blockchain technology can only control is the counterfeit of goods which are purchasable.
Another solution to this is the total elimination of physical fait currency to the adoption of full digital currency which I think many will not agree to particularly the government.

At the moment I don't think it is possible to do that right now, but who knows, maybe I am wrong.

As for counterfeiting Bitcoin, maybe creating all this altcoins with Bitcoin brand and adding words like:
Cash, Private, SV, Diamond, Gold, Black.... can be considered as a way of counterfeiting BTC.

I'm not 100% sure, but I'm guessing the goal of the future of our digital age, is to move to a cashless society, as this would save a lot of unnecessary headaches from trying to rebrand notes for tracking and whatnot. If everyone has a smart device, there will be no need for physical cash, the introduction to debit & credit card payments prepared us for this moment, gave us a taste.

Let's talk hypothetically for a second, just for argument's sake. Take Facebook, for example, they are getting ready to launch Libra, after the long drawn out debilitating process of going through the regulatory motions for a co-sign! If it goes off without a hitch, everyone in the world who has access to Facebook will have access to a cryptocurrency. Searchs for " What is Bitcoin?" and "What is cryptocurrency" will skyrocket.
   Sounds beautiful to me, unless you be a Luddite (to each his/her/(insert pro-noun's) own. If even half of those people have a smart-phone, they can get started with cashless trading right away. What happens next most likely will result in a boom, almost overnight. You'll see  Peer-2-peer cashless trading, albeit transparent, but cashless trading.

Just my two cents!  ;)

It will really be difficult to track counterfeit money on blockchain except a technology is installed on every note where users can scan for authenticity. This will be another delay and major cost of the already cost of money handling. Cryptocurrency will take care of counterfeit when the government are ready.

Bitcoin can't be counterfeited because it exists on blockchain, and the only way something can exist on blockchain is if it is digital in the first place. This idea of using blockchain against counterfeiting has the same problem that all supply-chain blockchain ideas have - there's always a trusted party that links physical items and blockchain, which just defeats the whole purpose of blockchain instantly.

Besides, any implementation of such blockchain would require some way of scanning banknotes, and if you can do that, you already can verify that they are genuine with existing tech.

Well, every single Bank note has a unique serial number and that serial number can be recorded on a public Blockchain, so when notes are used, people can scan a QR code on the note that would check if that serial number on the note is recorded on the Blockchain or not and if it is used in another location or if it was destroyed. <Similar to how people track ownership of digital items on a Blockchain>

So in theory, more than one person cannot own a single note and use it in 2 different geographical locations at the same time. So the recipients will be able to see where it was last "verified" and the system can flag it as possible counterfeit if it is geographically far apart.

They can also see if it was "destroyed" and if people are trying to use notes that has been previously destroyed.  ::)

The idea sounds very good, perhaps a money hologram with the Blockchain registry can be somehow synchronized so that to read the original money. However, I have not heard from any country to try to do it. Let's see, maybe in the future it will be implemented.

I'm sure that the government would love this, as it would mean that they could track every cash transaction. Nobody would bother to check receipts though, so it would have a very limited use. It's far easier for the government to introduce their own digital currency as an alternative.

Is that statistic accurate? Seems crazy to me that 1,7000 Billion in fiat cash is faked a year. That's 6 times what apple makes a year, and is around the revenue of the richest 6 companies in the world. If that statistic is true, I don't know what to say except wow...

Now, BTC can't be faked because the coin is impossible to re-create and you can't send coins to another person BTC address using faked BTC. Fiat can be faked because it's a physical thing that has no technology behind it, and you can fairly easily reprint it and use it for transactions.

If you could implement technology behind the basic banknote it could work. It'll require a lot of money to implement it on every banknote, but definitely possible. Is it worth it though? No. It'll take way too much time to add and more time to start integrating new banknotes into the system.

Definitely blockchain technology can't prevent counterfeiting cash money not unless there will be mass adoption in the future among the Governments and all the people in the world and disregard its utility altogether! When this happens, there will be no need to counterfeit a useless fiat money with no value at all. Imho.

Maybe. Maybe not. That is not the point though. The point is what financial incentive does the government stand to gain from this at the end of the day. That is what governments usually focus on.

On top of this, many governments have said good things about the blockchain tech and did nothing at all with it(Except for a few). Corruption will always exist no matter what form of tech is used though it can decrease by a large extent in some cases.

I remember an ICO about a year ago that was dedicated to using blockchain to fight fake clothes that resemble famous brands. I think since in that case, it was about rather fancy clothes that cost a lot already, the idea was to install microchips to keep track and know for sure. As for cash... Yeah, microchips are not an option due to the costs (and perhaps due to the weight as well). I am not good at it, but what about printing QR-codes? Can't we make the ones linked to a specific blockchain? To tell the actual banknote from the counterfeit one the code will simply need to be scanned. Maybe it's just something I don't understand about QR-codes, but it seems to be a simple and viable solution to me. Then again, if it wasn't implemented yet, perhaps it's impossible for a reason unknown to me.
If anyone can explain why this idea isn't possible or, if possible, isn't implemented yet, please do.

Why spend money and other resources on curbing a problem when we can eradicate it once and for all. One of the main reason for the development of the blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies is to solve issues with fiat currencies. Counterfeiting is one of the problems which is also causing huge debts to most countries in Africa and other parts of the world.  It's high time we move into the future and use our cryptocurrencies in our day to day transactions this is a more secured and faster way of making transactions.

Actually we are heading towards a banknote free economy. The fiat transactions are being held mostly online and if we be able to turn the current fiat to work under blockchain, there would be zero counterfeit fiat currency. Not only that, there would be much lesser tax evasion and money laundering as it would be easy to track the money. Though it may risk the financial privacy of individual, we are moving towards regulated and non-regulated cryptocurrencies.

Blockchain and cryptocurrencies have their own capabilities and their functions, which they can perform for the good in any area of ​​human life and already perform for individual cryptocurrency users.  But just do not exaggerate these opportunities.  To prevent fakes Fiat should law enforcement agencies and special services, not blockchain.

It could be done if governments want to. Blockchain is actually the best way to do this. But I doubt public blockchain will be used if they ever decide to try it. 

It could simply be done by printing unique numbers/alphabets on every note ,verifiable on blockchain. The numbers could be concealed with scratchable silver panel

That means overhauling the system and perusing the blockchain on all fiat transactions which in itself is already pretty far-fetched. The central bank has their own guidelines and security measures to prevent counterfeit cash from flowing around freely which are embedded on the currency that they issue which, to me is already one way of combatting the said event/scenario. Perhaps fiat will soon migrate to blockchain tech, but in the nearest future I doubt that to come to fruition.

No, I disagree. This can be a process that can be slowly phased in by digitizing fiat cash as it is deposited into the Banks and then re-distributed to the clients via ATMs. Yes, you might have to add something like a small QR code on the bills to display the unique serial number, but this can be added with all new coins that are printed.

I think the best solution would be to go cash free from the start, because you do not need to change any "paper" currencies or the supporting services that use these currencies.  ;D

That is absolutely right, since bitcoin is not controlled by anyone, it cannot be duplicated, the only crime that can ever occur is for people to steal bitcoin from people to make transactions and that will be problem from the owner. This aspect is one direction that government needs to look into, with bitcoin, it will be absolutely impossible for any issue of counterfeit to ever arise, but it will still be quite impossible because Fiat can never be phased out, as long as we have fiat in existence, there will always be this issue.

The only way people can have access to bitcoin right now is still to use some fiat to buy it and as long as money is being printed, they can still use the counterfeit fiat to buy bitcoin, except maybe government is really to change the entire currency into bitcoin without ever printing cash again.

and so it was that the thread did end

What a silly thing to think. You just solved your own question. You don't use fiat at all you use crypto. No need for waste paper or bs fraud notes. This is interesting sine I was also thinking how ridiculous it was that there are scanning machine that check if cash is real at the tills. It a technologically advanced world using paper seems really stupid.

This is a pretty accurate post, most advanced governments are already making moves to turn their society into a cash-less one, where having issues like these (counterfeit cash) would be something of the past. It's way harder to fake online money, then physical cash.

We can already see developments made in the field now - for example, where I live, in the past 5 years there has been a huge increase in card and "tap and go" payment systems. A lot of cash businesses in our area were forced to be able to accept card, or they would go out of business - it's not their product that's the problem, it's that no one carries cash anymore, it's way too inconvenient compared to using your phone or card.

This depends a lot on the governments, we've already seen a lot of progress from mainstream companies like Facebook and countries like China look to work with fiat and crypto side by side, and try bring a lot more regulation to crypto.