A lot of currencies these days will have anti-counterfeit measures in place, and researching some might be a good place to start.
Off the top of my head, I know that here in Canada our bills have these kind of metallic strips and if you tilt them you'll see a portrait of whoever is on the bill. There's also something about the transparent strip on our money, which not only looks very cool but also has the number value written on it. It's not always immediately visible so it's usually a good indicator of whether or not a bill is legitimate or not, and it's also apparently really hard to accurately duplicate.
Another one that's a little more simplistic is having something really tiny, that might come up blurry on a counterfeit bill. Or having something written in raised ink.
I don't know if any of that is really what you're looking for but, I'd still recommend looking into how to tell the difference between legitimate and counterfeit money.