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The fraud of passing off something of lesser value as the genuine article is the definition of counterfeiting.

But there is no such thing as a “genuine” $30 bill.

If it's being passed off as money, then someone thought it was. I don't think the Secret Service cares if it's an invalid denomination or has Bozo the Clown on the front. Probably not a high priority for them given the overall lack of believability, but the attempt is what counts.

I don't think that the parent comment is making the case it's not a crime, but rather that it's not specifically counterfeiting. There comment reads as playfully snarky to me, since, when discussing counterfeit currency, we almost always take counterfeit to mean "to make a fraudulent replica of".

It's still fraud, and an attempt to deceive.

If you’ll allow yourself to go one step further in the pedantry, there is no such thing as genuine money either.

There is if we agree that there is.

Which we have.

Isn’t this “uttering”?

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