Your Money Goes High-Tech

You might not realize that the new $100 bill is a technological marvel on par with your laptop and smartphone.

Technology—not just art and beauty—was behind the redesign of all our bills’ special new looks. How special? Special enough to fight counterfeiting, the government hopes.

Counterfeiters get more sophisticated and resourceful all the time. They hope to make bills that look real and use them without getting caught, and it’s the U.S. Treasury’s job to outthink and outperform them

All of the redesigned bills have a few special effects you can check out—even without a magnifying glass—to make sure they’re real. For example, the newest $5 has:

• Two watermarks. Watermarks are part of the paper—not just printed on top—and can be seen from both sides of the bill.

• Enhanced security thread. When you hold up the new $5 bill to an ultraviolet light, you’ll see a thin glowing blue thread.

• Awesome color. Light purple in the center blends into gray at the edges.

The redesigned $5 bill has something else new for good looks—a symbol of freedom on the back: the Great Seal of the United States featuring an American bald eagle and a shield.

The new security thread in it is something you might expect from Hogwarts School and Harry Potter. But it’s not magic; it’s technology at work. The new $100 bill uses microprinting with tiny lenses. These lenses magnify the microprinting to create optical illusions.

If you move the bill side to side, the image will appear to move up and down. And if you move it up and down, the image appears to move side by side. It’s not surprising that Benjamin Franklin’s image is involved with what’s expected to be the most fabulous technological development in paper money—tiny lenses.

The man who invented bifocal lenses also printed currency that was pretty advanced—in those days, it was hard to copy and pass off as real.