The Federation actually had counterfeit money too, and quite a bit of it at that.
Because people realized that earning money could never be as fast as printing it, aside from taking on the huge risk of printing, there didn't seem to be any other drawbacks.
Life, after all, is about choosing between risk and enjoyment!
Lance had originally planned to bluff with counterfeit notes, but to his surprise, they weren't easy to come by, and the counterfeits that were available were primarily in one yuan and two dollars denominations.
That's because printing larger denominations—five dollars, ten dollars, twenty dollars—would lead to increased scrutiny, as those sums often represented a person's income for one or two weeks.
People would definitely handle such bills with extra care, and this caution would inevitably lead to the fake currency being exposed.
After all, counterfeit money is termed "fake" because it isn't "real" enough; any imperfection can be detected.