Canadians love their Tim Horton’s coffees in winter and Jolly Rancher slushies in hot sticky summers. Unfortunately, they can no longer fork their $100 bills for these treats. Canada’s largest quick service restaurant chain has recently announced, “because of all the counterfeit in the area, we will no longer accept $100 bills.”
The notification, however, is not really that much of a surprise. Most businesses in North America will not accept payments in bills larger than $20 notes. Paper money has become so difficult to cash, that shoppers have acquired the habit of breaking larger bills in banks before going to shop.
Bitcoin (BTC) Is Anti-Counterfeit
Crypto enthusiasts wish that more business would accept more Bitcoin payments instead. Bitcoin cannot be counterfeited or duplicated. No one can forge a token and fraudulently insert it into the system. The network will automatically reject such a scheme as it will prevent double spend of the tokens as well. For every BTC than exists, there is a list of transactions to back it.
The chronological order of origin is bound in blockchain, and this record is public. The BTC blockchain network forms its check and balances system. It is this self-regulatory character of Bitcoin that makes it fully decentralized. It is also the reason why the digital currency cannot be controlled by a single entity. The blockchain backbone is the reason why Tim Horton’s would not suffer losses from counterfeit notes if they mass applied Bitcoin payments in their chain.
Just like most other nations on earth, the Liberal government of Canada has had a long fight with counterfeit bills. The Bank of Canada has in 2000, halted the printing of the $1,000 bill. The larger currency notes have been a favorite of criminals. They have been used by money laundering rings, for tax evasion schemes, and as counterfeits. The bank has also introduced new bank notes with enhanced security features to cut down on forgeries.
Fake Canadian Dollars A Prevalent Problem
This move, however, has not slowed the counterfeit rings down. There have been various calls made to Canadians to watch out for fake $100 polymer bills. The note launched in 2011 as part of the Bank of Canada‘s upgraded bank bills has improved security elements. At the onset, the new notes did help curb the counterfeit notes rates, but it has not taken long for criminals to catch up.
However, most users just do not carry around $100 bills anymore. They visit either the ATM or bank for smaller $20, $10 or $5 bills. According to Prof. Werner Antweiler, Ph.D. of the University of British Columbia looking at “the Bank of Canada’s banknotes statistics, we see a significant increase in the use of $100 banknotes. The $100 banknote is the instrument of choice of the illicit economy because it is easy to carry and hide. High-denomination banknotes facilitate tax evasion, money laundering, and other types of criminal activity. Still, the Bank of Canada reported in 2017 that 51 percent of all sales in Canada are still using cash“.
The future, nonetheless, is cashless. Canadians will either need their high-interest charge credit cards or mobile crypto payments to pay for their favorite goodies if they do not have fiat in smaller bills.
