Editing Currency bill tracking

{{Short description|Process of tracking the movements of banknotes}}
{{more citations needed|date=January 2024}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2011}}
[[File:Tender and Private.jpg|thumb|right|USD 1 banknote ([[United States one-dollar bill|Dollar bill]])]]
'''Currency bill tracking''' is the process of tracking the movements of [[banknote]]s, similar to how [[Ornithology|ornithologists]] track migrations of birds by [[Bird ringing|ringing]] them. It is usually facilitated by any one of a number of websites set up for the purpose, which can track currency among the users of that website. A user may register a bill by entering its serial number, and if someone else has already registered the bill, then the "route" of the bill can be displayed.

Some bill tracking sites encourage marking a bill before spending it, whereas others do not. This usually depends on the laws of the country issuing the currency.

The most popular currencies for currency tracking are the [[euro]], the [[United States dollar]] (USD), and the [[Canadian dollar]] (CAD).

==Background and legal status==
Originally beginning in the United States in the mid-1990s{{Citation needed|date=July 2024|reason=Anecdotal evidence suggests precursors - see talk}}, the phenomenon or hobby of currency tracking quickly spread first to Canada and then beyond. Especially with the Euro bill tracking, trackers have taken on a much more competitive nature and have formed communities within their respective sites. Many successful sites incorporate some sort of social media, either through site specific unique techniques, or through outside popular social media sites. In the [[Eurozone]] because multiple countries having adopted the Euro, this easily leads to competition between trackers in different countries; in the United States competition plays out at the state or county level; and in Canada, at the provincial level.

Marking bills in Canada with ink or rubber stamp is not illegal. In the United States, marking bills is illegal if there is intent to render the bill "unfit to be re-issued"; however, this is rarely enforced and only a fine is faced, if convicted. Marking is widespread in both countries. In the Eurozone marking is not universal, and varies by region. The [[European Central Bank]] considers the marking of bills (as well as the destruction of them) to be legal and not exclusive to governments.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32010H0191:EN:HTML|title = L_2010083EN.01007001.XML}}</ref>

==Popular currency bill tracking websites==
Some of the most popular websites for bill tracking include the following:

===North America===
* [[Where's George?]], started in December 1998.
* [[Where's Willy?]] for [[Canadian dollar|CAD]] (Canada).

===Europe===
* [[EuroBillTracker]] was started on January 1, 2002, to track [[euro banknotes]]. It is the largest of the euro tracking sites.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.eurobilltracker.com |title=eurobilltracker.com |publisher=eurobilltracker.com |date=2002-01-01 |accessdate=2012-03-13}}</ref>
* [[DoshTracker]], launched in 2001 and relaunched in 2012, allows [[pound sterling]] banknotes to be tracked around the [[United Kingdom]] and abroad

===Oceania===
* The Money Tracker, started in March 2006, tracks [[Australian dollar]]s and has similar functionality to Where's George.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.moneytracker.com.au/about.html  |title=Money Tracker: About |accessdate=13 July 2011 }}</ref><!-- note that the The Money Tracker AfD closed as merge, with some consensus that a sentence or two here would be appropriate. -->

===Asia===
* [[WheresRupee]] is a modern web-based tracking platform for tracing the movement of [[Indian rupee]] (INR) currency notes. It allows users to log serial numbers and view geographic history with map visualizations. It supports dark mode, live geolocation tracking, and user-generated tracking entries.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://wheresrupee.com |title=WheresRupee? |accessdate=2025-04-01}}</ref>

==In popular culture==
{{unreferenced section|date=November 2017}}
The act of tracking a $20 bill was the binding theme between various stories in the film ''[[Twenty Bucks]]''.

A similar scheme to currency bill tracking – and said to be inspired by it – is [[BookCrossing]], which tracks the movement of secondhand books which are marked and then "released into the wild".

In one episode of the Czechoslovak comic series ''[[Rychlé šípy]]'', the boy club releases a marked 1 crown coin and then they track the coin through [[Czechoslovakia]].

==See also==
*[[Geocaching]]
*[[Letterboxing (hobby)|Letterboxing]]
*[[Postcrossing]]

==References==
{{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Currency Bill Tracking}}
[[Category:Numismatics]]
[[Category:Internet object tracking]]
[[Category:Hobbies]]
[[Category:Surveillance]]