Shopping5 Great April Fool’s Day Gag Gifts for Under $15Martha C. WhiteThis Saturday is the Super Bowl for practical jokers, so in the spirit of a good-natured prank, here are some suggestions for how to share the ha-has on April Fool’s Day.Not surprisingly, here at MONEY we have a penchant for pranks that revolve around cold, hard cash: working for it, winning it, losing it, and having to fork it over.Here are the most ingenious ways you can tickle your funny bone at someone’s expense this April Fool’s Day without having to break the bank.Although it’s actually more likely you’ll get hit by lightning than win the Powerball, there’s no harm in letting a friend think they hit the jackpot with these fake winning lotto tickets ($3.90 for six tickets).You might want to let them in on the joke before they book that bucket-list trip to Tahiti, though.What do you get the ultimate multi-tasker?We have no idea, but if you put it in this faux gift box ($6.99), they’ll at least get a laugh (and maybe a little bit of false hope) at the thought of receiving the “iArm.” We’ll repeat what the product listing states, which is that — surprise — this isn’t a real product.

It’s just a box, so you can put a non-prank gift inside.Who among us hasn’t had a heart-stopping moment when your phone hits the floor, praying to the gods of mobile communication as you pick it up that you aren’t going to face a cracked screen and a pricey repair bill?Share that sense of panic by slapping this decal on the screen of an unsuspecting co-worker or spouse ($7.99 for four).There’s found money, and then there’s this wad of realistic-looking funny money ($12), sure to make whoever finds this rubber band-wrapped stack on the sidewalk think they can start flinging around the Benjamins with abandon.There’s no bigger bummer than returning to your car to find a parking ticket tucked underneath the windshield wiper.These gag tickets ($5.41 for 10) let you inject a little levity into the “gotcha” moment by checking off “violations” that say things like, “Smile, the joke’s on you” or “Staring off into space.” While we hope all of your prank victims will be good-humored about being had, if you ruffle any feathers, there’s always this ultimate apology gift: A five-foot teddy bear wearing a bright red “I’m sorry” T-shirt ($143.21).We’ve included affiliate links into this article.

Click here to learn what those are.Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images Bitcoin is a fantasy.The Internet’s currency—a secure, private, decentralized type of money that makes possible anonymous and virtually costless transactions across borders—contains the seeds of its own destruction.More than anything else, it resembles a Ponzi scheme—and the wild claims made on its behalf reveal a great deal about a libertarian strain of thinking with deep roots in the American psyche.bitcoin suedoisAs Farhad Manjoo relates in his entertaining (but dubious) foray into the market, bitcoin is the brainchild of a person (or persons) called Satoshi Nakamoto.bitcoin casino exploitComputer users can “mine” bitcoins by instructing their computers to solve complex problems generated by the bitcoin network.win bitcoin faucet

As more bitcoins are produced, the problems become more complex, requiring more computer power to solve them, and this limits the total number of bitcoins that can be created over time.Bitcoins are themselves simply strings of numbers.Once you own a bitcoin, you can transfer it to someone else (as a gift or to purchase goods) over the Internet.You can also convert it into dollars or other currencies on various exchanges.The Bitcoin network keeps track of where the bitcoins are located, so you cannot spend a single bitcoin over and over again by trying to transmit the identical code.* The currency was launched in 2009.xapo bitcoin accountIt has traded for less than 1 cent.bitcoin ventures llcAs recently as a year ago, a bitcoin was worth less than $5; this week the price of a bitcoin reached $266, an increase of more than 1,000 percent over the last three months, but then yesterday plunged to $105 before finishing off at $165 last I looked.asrock bitcoin pro

More than 11 million bitcoins circulate, and so their aggregate value is fluctuating between $1 and $2 billion—a tiny fraction of the trillions of dollars in currency but not bad for the infant brainchild of an anonymous brain.Bitcoin may be useful for certain types of transactions, especially illegal ones.But bitcoin’s defenders argue that the experiment has proved that a currency can come into existence and function without any government role, so designed as to make inflation impossible and bank transfer fees unnecessary.bitcointalk indiaThese features are supposed to make bitcoins irresistible for consumers.litecoin video cardMeanwhile, stripped of the power to manipulate currencies to advance nefarious ends, governments will collapse, and we will live in an anarcho-utopia.bitcoin vs namecoin

This is wrong, both theory and experience tell us.Bitcoin is not the first unregulated or private currency.Until central banks were invented in the 17th century, the money supply was unregulated even if governments did stamp coins.Other unregulated or private currencies have emerged from time to time—think of cigarettes in prison camps.Gold, silver, bank notes, and all kinds of other things have played similar roles.Paul Krugman wrote a famous Slate piece about a private currency that was invented to facilitate the exchange of services in a baby-sitting co-op.Felix Salmon and many others have pointed out that a currency cannot succeed with a supply that is fixed, or if it grows too slowly.A currency is used to enter transactions; the more transactions there are, the more of the money you need.As the economy grows, a fixed-supply currency becomes worth more in terms of goods and services, and people begin to hoard it—expecting that if they wait a little longer, they will be able to buy more.

Once hoarding takes over, circulation ends, and with it the function of the currency.Hoarding accounts for the large increase in the value of bitcoins; hoarding also sank Krugman’s baby-sitting scrip.An even more fundamental problem with bitcoins, and indeed any private currency, is that there is no way to limit its supply.True, bitcoins cannot be manufactured beyond the limits set by Nakamoto.But there is no way to prevent future Nakamotos from creating bitcoin substitutes—say, bytecoin, or botcoin.If merchants are willing to accept bitcoins, they will be willing to accept the substitutes, especially as bitcoins become scarce and consumers scramble for substitutes.Nakamoto must have realized this because there are not enough bitcoins to substitute for the currencies around the world.The currency can only succeed if it is expanded or supplemented.But if there are no constraints on substitute digital currencies—and there aren’t—then the value of bitcoins will plummet as the subs begin to circulate.

And once it becomes clear that there is no limit, people will realize that their holdings could become worthless at any moment, and demand for bitcoins and the other currencies will collapse, ending the experiment.Unless a bitcoin has value as a currency, it has no value at all, and its price in dollars will fall to zero.A regular Ponzi scheme collapses when people realize that earlier investors are being paid out of the investments of later investors rather than from the returns on an underlying asset.Bitcoin will collapse when people realize that it can’t survive as a currency because of its built-in deflationary features, or because of the emergence of bytecoins, or both.A real Ponzi scheme takes fraud; bitcoin, by contrast, seems more like a collective delusion.Given this, why all the enthusiasm for bitcoin?Partly, the technological ingenuity of the scheme, of course.And people have misinterpreted the run-up in price as a sign of success rather than failure.But more fundamentally, bitcoin unites futuristic left-wing Internet anarchism—the fantasy that the Web can provide the conditions for a governmentless society—with the cave-dwelling right-wing libertarianism of goldbugs who think a stable money supply can be established without government involvement.