It’s been more than ten years since then US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew announced a new project to redesign the nations currency, beginning with the $10 note.
At the time of the announcement, the designs for the new $10 bills were expected to be released in 2020 to correlate with the 100th anniversary of 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote.
For a while, the proposals were circulating in the media that a woman would be featured in the design. However, it was announced in 2016 that Alexander Hamilton would continue to appear on the $10 bill, due in part to his sudden resurgence in popularity due to the Broadway musical. That led to discussions of potentially Harriet Tubman being featured on the $20 note, but that movement seems to be flailing at the moment and the replacement for that is not expected until 2030.
While millions in taxpayer funds has been spent on research and development of new security features, along with the implementation of new intaglio printing processes, no prospective designs have been released to the public.
The USDebtClock has recently included some suggestions in their secret messages regarding what they think a gold-backed sound money currency design might look like.
Much of the official information comes from court filings, reported by Coin World, that are part of an ongoing lawsuit against the Bureau from Women On 20s, an advocacy group for the visual impaired.
A scant amount of information can be gleamed from some of the Annual Reports issued by the Bureau
Recently, in the 2024 Federal Reserve Note Print Order includes a note indicating the need to allocate resources to achieve to meet the 2026 issuance of the new Catalyst $10 bill. With production of the new currency note expected to begin in 2025. The same notes related to resource allocation was also included in the 2023 Print Order.
The selection of the $10 note for redesign was determined by the Advanced Counterfeit Deterrence (ACD) Steering Committee, which is comprised of stakeholders from Treasury, BEP, the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Reserve System and the U.S. Secret Service.
The new $10 bill will include new tactile features for improved usability for the blind and visually impaired. This is in addition to other features such as larger, high-contract numerals, new currency readers and mobile applications.
New $10 Bill Design
It has been ten years since this project was first announced, and so far, no prospective designs have been released to the public.
In 2017, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing released an updated on the Catalyst $10 project in the Chief Financial Officers Performance and Accountability Report.
“…the first note of the family of notes, currently known as the Catalyst $10, entered the BDP concept phase while the test note completed the BDP development phase. Family design activities, Project Salt, commenced by defining low-fidelity and exploring Catalyst family sub-themes based on the overarching Democracy theme.”
The BDP is an acronym for the Banknote Development Process, which is part of the Technology Development Process (TDP), which is responsible for governing research, development and maturation of security and other features to be incorporated into new currency designs.
In 2021, the Annual Financial Report from the BEP included a brief status update on Project Catalyst, indicating that work had already complete on a Pilot of a new design:
“to include two new public security features, …a raised tactile feature, a low vision feature to support individuals with visual impairments, and a new face portrait and back vignette.”
The BEP reportedly has begun feasibility trials using the intaglio printing process to apply the new Raised Tactile Feel (RTF). These machines are capable of printing currency notes at speeds of up to 10,000 sheets per hour, with 32 or 50 notes per sheet.
So far, the project duration without any public preview of prospective designs, along with the litany of three letter acronyms, are both indicators that one or more large teams of consultants are involved in the project, with taxpayers footing the bill for hundreds per hour for each consultant.
Although the prospective designs remain secret, the release schedule for a new $10 bill is expected in 2026, with the $50 bill following in 2028 and the $20 bill in 2030. Further down the line, a new $5 is expected before 2035. A redesigned $100 note is expected before 2038. With no plans for a redesign of the $1 or $2 notes, it’s highly likely that those will be replaced with $ 1 and $2 coins.